Role-Ending Misdemeanor

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Joey: Huh? Never really thought about the writers. The scripts just kinda come to my house. But you know what? This makes me look good, which makes the show look good, which makes the writers look good so how could they be mad about that? Writer: "Makes up most of his lines". Son of a—! Yeah, well, write this, jerkweed.

The Role Ending Misdemeanor occurs when, due to objectionable behavior or even outright criminal misconduct in their personal life (and despite the trope name, some of these role enders are straight-up felonies), an individual is fired in order to protect a project's reputation, or in the case of independent artists/performers they are forced to leave the public scene because of the damage to their image. This could be an isolated incident and the result of bad luck, or the latest string of being difficult because the rest of the cast and crew simply would not put up with him/her any longer. If this person is a cast member on a long-running TV show, the character will probably be McLeaned. If they are too integral to the show's foundation, it could end the project altogether.

In some cases this is done as a desperate gambit to force the rejected star into getting help for a booze or drugs problem. It rarely works. But if they do get their act together it's not unheard of for these actors to make a return appearance somewhere down the line.

In other cases, they may actually be innocent of any wrong-doings and their name has unfortunately become associated with bad press. Or that perceived behind-the-scenes trouble is the excuse used and they are actually The Scapegoat for a more complicated problem.

Examples:

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Advertising

Jared Fogle had a successful career as the spokesman for Subway, bragging about losing 245 pounds by eating their sandwiches in their TV and print ads over a fifteen year period. That ended in 2015, when Jared was arrested for possessing child pornography on his computer. Then it was revealed that he had previously paid for sex with a sixteen year old and sexually abused other minors. In the ensuing court case, he pled guilty and was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison. Adding to the humiliation, his charity foundation was also found to be a scam, and the director was found to be a sex offender as well. This led Subway to scrub their website of any association with him.

Comedian Gilbert Gottfried lost his job as the voice of the Aflac Duck mascot after he posted very insensitive jokes about the massive 2011 earthquake in Japan on Twitter. Aflac does a lot of business in Japan and was not amused by his jokes about dead Japanese floating by.

Interestingly, Gottfried didn't get fired for making a similarly offensive remark, nearly one decade earlier, about the Empire State Building, if only because he made a remarkable comeback joke in the form of The Aristocrats immediately after.

In a similar vein, voice actor D.C. Douglas was canned by Geico after he left a voicemail message for a Tea Party group, specifically one called Freedom Works, suggesting that its members were mentally retarded (he has gone on record to say that he was asking, genuinely, if they employed/allowed membership for people legally deemed mentally retarded; that he left his real contact info on the message seems to support this, since that'd be a very stupid thing to do if he were trolling). Ironically, though, this ended up backfiring for the group immensely, as it actually put Douglas in the public eye once again, getting him a good amount of work, including two Star Making Roles as Wesker and Legion in short succession, and giving him a lot of political ammunition (long story short, the group had exaggerated numerous details such as claiming he drunkenly called them with deliberate intent to offend, neither of which was true, and also appeared rather petty by going after him instead of focusing on genuine issues). This post two years later sums it all up.

The Kevin Butler ads for Sony's various consoles ended after it was noted that the actor also appeared in an ad for Bridgestone tires, playing Mario Kart Wii. They even sued Jerry Lambert, said actor, for appearing in said Bridgestone commercial (though that was later settled out of court).

Alice, a brand of German ISP Hansenet, had been personified since its launch in 2004 by Italian model Vanessa Hessler. In 2011, she revealed she had been in a relationship with a son of Muammar Gaddafi and expressed support for the family. The company immediately fired her and retired the brand soon after.

Anime and Manga

Supposedly, the character of Yuuichi Tate in Mai Hi ME was not recycled into Mai-Otome because his voice actor, Tomokazu Seki, spoiled the ending of the first series.

According to rumors, demands of a higher salary from Judai Yuki's voice actor halfway through the production of season 4 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX forced him to be axed and the entire season being cut in half. It's less surprising when you figure that Judai was becoming way too over-focused in the anime, enough so that a raise demand wasn't out of the question.

The Pikachu and Pichu short for Pokémon became a Missing Episode in Japan due to its narrator, the singer and actress Noriko Sakai, being arrested for drug possession. It doesn't help that they could've easily had a new narrator overdub Sakai's narration. Worse, this may have even contributed to OLM/Imagica withholding the international licenses for the other early Pikachu shorts as well.

A 13-disk box set of Hayao Miyazaki's works was recalled to remove the music video "On Your Mark" after Shigeaki Miyazaki (Aska of the musical group Chage and Aska and not related to Hayao himself) was arrested for drug possession. Even more, the group's former record label, Universal Music Japan (which also includes Miyazaki's regular collaborator Joe Hisaishi on their roster), is removing everything involving the group they had contracts towards.

Downplayed in the aftermath of Illich Guardiola's arrest on charges of sexual assault (which were eventually dropped because the victim and her mother weren't cooperating with the police). He's still the voice of The Anguished One in Devil Survivor 2, but Sentai Filmworks didn't mention him when announcing the English dub cast.

Kenji Yamamoto, composer for Dragon Ball Kai and many Dragon Ball Z video games (such as the popular Budokai series), was fired by Toei in 2011 after it was revealed he'd been plagiarizing tracks going as far back as 1991. This resulted in Yamamoto's score for Kai being replaced by the original Shunsuke Kikuchi score from DBZ, both in later episodes and in DVD releases, as well as the BudokaiHD Collection.

Blake Lewis confirmed on Twitter that he was reprising his role of Kasuka Heiwajima for season 2 of Durarara!! before the English dub was even confirmed. When the cast was announced, Vic Mignogna was instead listed as the character's voice. Many thought it was a mistake at first, but once the episodes began coming out, it was indeed Vic's voice heard as Kasuka. Some speculate the character was quietly recast because Lewis had broken NDA.

The same thing was originally believed to have happened to Christopher Corey Smith as Prince Demande in Sailor Moon R. He announced that he was voicing the character on Twitter before the cast was announced, but he quickly deleted it. When the final cast was officially announced a few weeks later, Matthew Mercer was instead listed as the character's voice. Fans assumed he was fired for the same reason before he confirmed that he was given clearance to announce the role, but was told that he was replaced after making the announcement, possibly for creative reasons.

Scott Freeman was arrested and convicted for possession of child pornography in 2015. For this reason, he lost all of his roles, especially his most famous ones as Issei Hyoudou from High School D×D (who was then recast as Josh Grelle) and England from Axis Powers Hetalia (who will be played by Taliesin Jaffe in the Beautiful World dub). Justin Cook commented that Freeman will likely never be invited to voice act ever again.

Beauty Pageants and Modeling

One of the earliest examples of this trope from the pageant world is Marjorie Wallace, the first American to be crowned Miss World, who lost her crown about three months into her reign when, while spending time in the UK, she dated, at approximately the same time, Tom Jones, Northern Ireland football star George Best, and American racing driver Peter Revson. She was engaged to Revson, and had her crown stripped after being caught kissing Jones on the beach in Bermuda; a mere two weeks later, Revson died in a fiery crash.

The most famous example of this trope from the Pageant world is Vanessa L. Williams, who became the first African-American woman to be crowned Miss America in 1984, but later relinquished the crown after Penthouse magazine published several nude photos of her that had been taken a few years prior to her entering the competition.

Despite the controversy, Williams eventually became one of the most successful Miss Americas of all time after launching recording and acting careers (her song "Save the Best for Last" was a worldwide hit in 1992).

Meanwhile, Laser-Guided Karma hit the offending photos when it was revealed that Traci Lords, the centerfold for the issue of Penthouse that they were published in, was underage. Williams was presumably relieved by this turn of events.

Katie Rees was stripped of her Miss Nevada USA crown in December of 2006 after racy photos surfaced of her partying topless and making out with some lady friends in a Florida night club.

Miss California USA 2009 Carrie Prejean invited controversy by using her Q&A session during the 2009 Miss USA pageant to declare that she believed marriage should only be between a man and a woman. She then found herself in the middle of another controversy several months later when modeling photos of her posing topless in panties (but not showing anything) began making the rounds of the Internet. Despite the controversy she was allowed to keep her title, only to have it stripped for good shortly afterward for an unspecified "breach of contract" unrelated to either of those incidents.

Averted with Miss Brazil 2011 Priscila Machado, who attracted controversy after topless pictures leaked online before the contest but still won. Not so much with the 2002 winner Joseane Oliveira, who was stripped of the crown after they found out she was secretly married (and then decided to strip herself of everything else for Playboy).

A very famous case is former Mexican Miss Sinaloa, Laura Zúñiga, who was arrested in 2008 alongside her boyfriend (a member of a drug cartel) in possession of $53,000 USD and an arsenal of long weapons. She was stripped of her crown but later made a quiet comeback in modeling; her story served as inspiration for the film Miss Bala.

Supermodel Kate Moss was dropped from several advertising campaigns that she was the face of after a video surfaced of her using cocaine. However, other cosmetics companies and fashion houses took up the slack and offered her deals.

2015 Miss Puerto Rico, Destiny Velez, was suspended indefinitely from her role by the Miss Puerto Rico organization after she tweeted Islamophobic messages.

2016 Miss Puerto Rico, Kristhielee Caride, didn't fare any better as she was stripped from her crown after she declared that "she didn't like cameras", allegedly this was the last straw in a series of problems she was having with the organization.

Businesses

Many companies in the U.S. practice "at-will" employment, meaning that they can fire anybody for any reason without having to show cause. Making a major mistake at work is a common way to get the boot.

Heinz's partnership with McDonald's (which is only in certain markets; most McDonald's use their own brand of ketchup) was terminated when Heinz hired a guy who used to be a CEO for McDonalds rival Burger King.

In 2005, Cool Planemaker Boeing lost its CEO Harry Stonecipher. Stonecipher had an affair with Boeing executive Debra Peabody right when they were caught spying on rival Airbus and an Air Force official was sent to prison due to a bad deal with Boeing. While nothing illegal came of Stonecipher's relationship, the board of directors decided that there would be "zero tolerance on breaches of ethics" and accepted his resignation.

In The '70s, Lockheed inverted this trope: According to Lockheed engineer Ben Rich in his autobiography Skunk Works, Chief Engineer Kelly Johnson was so disgusted by the Lockheed bribery scandals that he almost left the company. Instead several board members and executives resigned rather than have a company ending scandal due to their chief talent quitting.

NBCUniversal ended its ties with Donald Trump following nativist comments he made in his 2016 United States presidential campaign announcement, stating that Mexican immigrants were "bringing crime, rapists, and drugs" to the United States. The Hispanic-run American network Univision was the first to end ties with him following the comments, and it didn't take long for NBC to follow their footsteps.

Many others have also cancelled or backed out on business arrangements with Trump, including potential businesses in his buildings and several golf tournaments at his facilities. This was especially so after the Access Hollywood leak.

My Little Pony writer Ted Anderson averted this. There was Internet Backdraft stemming from his inclusion of a fanmade character (an alicorn called "Princess Glitter Punch") from an artist, known on Tumblr as "Cuteosphere", for her disdain toward men in the MLP: FiM fandom. The backlash further exploded when Anderson defended the cameo in the comic across the fandom forums, claiming that the artist's comments on the fandom are just 'satire'. In the months that followed, massive speculation began piling up about what happened to Anderson, with some going as far as saying IDW Comics fired him. An IDW representative later clarified that he was never fired, but that he and the writers were expressively forbidden to add any more fanmade characters to the comic in the future.

Roc Upchurch was fired from the position of artist on Rat Queens after being arrested for assaulting his wife. It would have been bad enough anyway, but the fact that the comic had a largely female cast and a large feminist fanbase sealed it.

DC Comics no longer employs artist Justiniano due to his arrest over possession of child pornography. Wonder Woman: Hand of the Gods, an original Graphic Novel he was illustrating at the time, has been put on hold indefinitely due to the incident.

Averted with editorial cartoonist Mike Lester, who got arrested in 2009 for assaulting his wife. This didn't hurt his career, and he even gained a daily strip since then.

Also averted with Bruce Tinsley, creator of Mallard Fillmore, after he got arrested twice for DUI in 2006.

It's safe to say that Tulsa cartoonist David Simpson will never work again after he was caught plagiarizing other cartoonists (mostly Jeff MacNelly) for over 30 years.

Ted Rall was fired from the Los Angeles Times in 2015 after allegations surfaced of him lying about an encounter with the Los Angeles Police Department in 2001.

Film

Possibly inverted with Robert Downey, Jr. Reviewers often mentioned how his experience with alcoholism and drug abuse made him perfect for the role as Iron Man, the archetypal battling-with-his-own-demons superhero. Still, it was nearly impossible to get insurance for him on the role.

This happened to David Niven, of all people. At some point in the 1930s he was carrying on a torrid affair with Merle Oberon. During this time he accompanied Oberon on a rail trip from New York City to Los Angeles, spending the entire trip doing exactly what you're thinking in Oberon's private carriage. The only problem was that the US had a law at the time called the Mann Act, which forbade the interstate transport of women for "immoral purposes." Although the law was originally intended to simplify the prosecution of pimps and pedophiles, in practice it was often used maliciously against "undesirables" such as interracial couples, foreigners, or those naughty, nasty movie stars. (Oberon and Niven would have fit all three categories.) Niven later wrote that he found himself having to go to ground for a while to avoid prosecution, and lost at least half a dozen parts over the kerfuffle. Note that this was a consensual relationship between two unmarried adults, and that Oberon's career was also tarnished, although she was never targeted by the police (and, as Niven had asked, refused to speak to them).

Roman Polanski was relegated to directingPirates when he committed statutory rape of at least one 13 year old girl. He pleaded guilty, but then fled the country to avoid serving his sentence.note In this case, we're talking Role Ending Felony. Obviously this forced him to delay his project; initially, he was also supposed to play Captain Thomas Bartholomew Red's sidekick Frog, but by the time he finally got around to making the film, he had apparently already figured out he was too old for the part. In an odd case, Polanski wasn't the only one who lost his intended role because of his crime and subsequent cowardice; Jack Nicholson, who was supposed to play Captain Red, found himself caught up in the same scandal as an innocent bystander in the long run when the role was given to Walter Matthau.

Making Mr. Right features an in-universe example. A popular soap opera character is killed off shortly after his portrayer gets into a scuffle with the beloved android main character. It's implied the encounter led to the firing.

Barely averted with Shia LaBeouf, who was already confirmed to not return for Age of Extinction before he went totally wacko in 2013, starting with a plagiarism dispute with an author of which he's a self-proclaimed Loony Fan. Suffice it to say, for him it was all downhill from there, and the incident also dealt a heavy blow to Mutt's chances of appearing in the first Disney-produced (and fifth total) Indiana Jones film barring another actor taking the role.

The career of film composer Dominic Frontiere (best known for films such as The Stunt Man and Hang 'Em High and TV series like The Outer Limits (1963)) was destroyed when he was jailed for a year in 1986 for scalping $500,000 worth of Super Bowl tickets (obtained from his then-wife, Los Angeles Rams owner Georgia Frontiere) and not reporting it to the IRS. After his jail sentence ended, Frontiere scored just one more film and his marriage ended as well.

Inverted for Robert Mitchum, who was arrested for marijuana possession in 1948, during a time when an arrest record would practically kill any celebrity's career. Instead, it helped boost his bad boy image. It's even referenced in L.A. Confidential.

Similarly, actor Rory Calhoun's past as a juvenile delinquent made the pages of Confidential magazine. Although Calhoun's persona wasn't that of a "bad boy", the fact that Calhoun's religious conversion had played a part in his rehabilitation smoothed the way.

Interestingly, years later it was discovered that Calhoun's "outing" as a former juvie had been the work of his agent, who had given Confidential Calhoun's story in a deal he made to protect his biggest star - Rock Hudson - from being outed as gay.

Rip Torn's character Zed from the Men in Black series was killed off between movies 2 and 3 due to a drunk driving arrest on the part of Mr. Torn. That business with breaking into a closed bank while drunk and armed probably didn't help his chances to appear in 3 either.

When it was decided to give Snow White and the Huntsman a sequel, the original film's director Rupert Sanders was not chosen to return presumably due to his affair with Kristen Stewart. Although Stewart was slated to appear in the sequel, Universal ended up dropping her, too, and subsequently made it a prequel called The Huntsman: Winter's War. Stewart claims she opted not to stay with the franchise due to disliking the scripts she was offered. The resultswere disastrous.

Herman Bing, a well-known character actor from Germany, lost appeal to American audiences when he was rumored to have sympathized with the Nazis during World War II, though these rumors were never actually proven. This left him unable to find any work in Hollywood so that, two years after World War II ended, Bing fell into depression and committed suicide by gunshot.

Warner Bros. terminated its contract with Busby Berkeley, known for musicals such as Flying High, 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, and Gold Diggers of 1935, after he was arrested for drunk driving. It didn't help that The Hays Code was just starting to be stringently enforced, and Warner suddenly had to become a lot more cautious to ensure its films didn't promote immorality.

Fictional example: producer Victor Taranksy attempts to end his fictional actress' career with several of these in S1m0ne, including an appearance in an awful Le Film Artistique where she eats slop out of a pig trough in a wedding dress and an interview where she advocates smoking cigarettes and building shooting galleries at elementary schools. It doesn't take.

Jeffrey Jones committed career suicide with his child pornography incident in 2002. He's only done one film since, although he did have a role on Deadwood and was allowed to keep doing voice work for Invader Zim.

Almost happened to Jason Mewes, who plays Jay in The View Askewniverse films. After a number of drug-related incidents the director refused to let him be in Clerks II unless he cleaned himself up. It helps that in Clerks II Jay is an addict after rehab.

During the late 80s, Rob Lowe was celebrated as the new male sex symbol in films and television. This came to an end after he was caught in a sex tape scandal (before sex tapes became popular shortcuts to fame). While he still appears in mostly television movies, his career has never been popular as it was before the scandal.

John Dykstra was fired from Industrial Light and Magic for leading the special effects team of Battlestar Galactica, which was perceived as a ripoff of ILM founder George Lucas's Star Wars, though several of his employees remained at ILM, their original home turf. Dykstra would later prove that he was no Pete Best through Apogee's involvement in numerous big-budget productions throughout the '80s.

In an example of one person's legal troubles costing another person his job, Marlon Brando had a warrant for his arrest in Italy due to his involvement in Last Tango in Paris, which had been banned there as legally obscene, and that precluded any shooting for Superman in Italy. Guy Hamilton ended up paying the price, as that meant he was relegated to filming in the UK, but he could only work there for a limited time due to tax-related circumstances. When production failed to get sufficiently off the ground on time, his job went to Richard Donner.

Easy Rider has one of the most controversial examples of this. Originally, Rip Torn was cast to play George Hanson in the movie. However, during a dinner with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda at a New York restaurant discussing the movie, Torn and Hopper allegedly got into a fight after Hopper complained about the Southern culture and its adherents during his trips down there. Torn, a Texan, was pissed over Hopper's comments, and he withdrew from the project and was replaced with Jack Nicholson. In an interview with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, Hopper claimed that Torn was fired from the film because he pulled a knife on him during the confrontation at the restaurant. Torn later successfully sued Hopper for defamation, claiming that Hopper pulled the knife on him. Fonda by the way claims that whoever started it, they both went after each other—and they were brandishing butter knives, not switchblades. The circumstances of this event has been long debated.

Amy Pascal was forced to resign as Chairman of Sony Pictures after a number of e-mails from Pascal libeling various celebrities as well as United States President Barack Obama (some of them going as far as poking fun at his race) were leaked to the public as part of a cyber attack against the studio. Pascal has stated she will continue working with Sony, but at a lesser role.

Lizabeth Scott, a minor star in the forties, saw her film career come to an abrupt end in 1954 when the tabloid Confidential accused her of being a lesbian, which was still illegal in California at the time. The decline of noir films, the genre that made her famous, did not help. She made a few attempts at comebacks in music and television, but never reached the same level of fame she previously enjoyed.

Lana Turner's film career ended after her then-boyfriend was killed and it was revealed that he had Mafia ties. Even though it was eventually revealed that Turner's daughter had killed him in self-defense, the damage was already done, and there was no possible way her career could ever fully recover.

Miss Congeniality has an in-universe example: Gracie is able to enter the Miss United States pageant in place of the winner from New Jersey because the beauty queen had starred in a porn movie.

The Week has another in-universe example. Beloved chat show host Dick Romans was removed from television after an incident where he went mad on the air and started burning a book.

Winona Ryder's career was stunted for a long while after her arrest for shoplifting. Woody Allen stated in a memoir that he wanted to cast her in Melinda and Melinda along with Robert Downey, Jr., but her shoplifting along with his alcohol and drug problems made trying to get insurance on them (and a subsequent bond to shoot the film) impossible.

Averted with Tim Allen. Despite serving time for drug trafficking in the late '70s, he has been able to get steady work from Disney, which is notoriously tough on those with criminal records, afterwards.

Randall Miller will probably never direct another film after a camera assistant was killed on the set of his film, Midnight Rider. He illegally filmed a dream sequence on an active railroad track rather than arrange with a railroad company to film on an inactive track. The film company scrapped the film while Miller served a year in prison for manslaughter.

Literature

Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago, was (as mentioned on Banned in China) forced to refuse his Nobel Prize for Literature under pressure from the Soviet Union simply because the book violated Soviet laws of the time.

Live Action TV

Gary Dourdan, who had been hinting that he might leave CSI, was finally written out of the show due to his personal problems; rumors that his drug charges were a direct cause are untrue.

After four great seasons writing and producing The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin was asked to leave his position as Executive Producer after his drug scandal leaked out.

Shannen Doherty's notoriously prickly personality has led to several examples of this:

Her character on Charmed being killed off was heavily rumored to have been done at the request of her co-star Alyssa Milano, as it was well known that they hated each other. The writers notably included an episode where she spent most of the running time transformed into a female dog. The message was certainly on the wall...through which Prue was then lethally thrown, making the season finale also a dropped bridge. And, given the show's universe, full of Fridge Logic, rendering it all even more obvious. Earlier at the end of Season 1, TW King was written out of the series - and a rumour was that it was because Doherty didn't like him.

This was also why her character was ousted from Beverly Hills 90210. She reportedly didn't get along with the remaining cast members, and thus, she was fired at the end of the fourth season and replaced with a new character played by Tiffani-Amber Thiessen.

Coronation Street: Two key characters were in limbo after being caught up in the fall-out from the Jimmy Savile business. Actors Michael LeVell (Kevin Webster) and Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) were temporarily written out of the show pending resolution of alleged under-age sex offences. Michael LeVell's character came back, after spending a very long time visiting family. William Roache's character is now back as well. Les Battersby was also Put on a Bus after his actor was overheard drunkenly complaining about the show in a pub.

Melissa Suffield (Lucy Beale) got sacked after being caught going into London nightclubs while underage and getting unruly drunk. Her rather colorful social network sites might also have had something to do with it. The character was eventually reinstated with a new actress.

Leslie Grantham ("Dirty" Den Watts) narrowly evaded this at the start when it was revealed that the actor had served a "life" sentence (paroled after ten years) for murder. The BBC stood by him, arguing that he'd learnt his lesson and every former criminal deserves rehabilitation, and he lasted several years on the show before leaving of his own volition. (The fact that he was playing a villainous, semi-criminal character rather than any kind of role model also may have helped.) However, he did suffer this at the end of his second stint as a regular character on the show, forced to quit after Internet footage was released of him performing indecent acts in front of a webcam for what he thought was a single-person audience.

Zigzagged by Daniella Westbrook (Sam Mitchell). In 1996 her character was axed from the show due to the controversy surrounding Westbrook's cocaine addiction. However, she returned to the role in 1999...only to be axed the following year after her continued addiction completely eroded her septum. Sam was brought back again in 2002, with Kim Medcalf in the role, then written out in 2005. When the character returned briefly in 2009 and 2010, Westbrook, who had by now cleaned up her act and had reconstructive surgery on her nose, was handed the role back.

Glenn Quinn was removed from Angel earlier than intended because of fears that his drug habit would rub off on David Boreanaz. He died from a heroin overdose three years afterward. They really had bad luck, since the character was originally meant to be Whistler from Buffy, but that actor also had drug problems. Word of God is that they had planned to bring Quinn back in Season 3 but he had already passed away.

Julie Benz was removed early on from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer in part due to tensions on set during Season 1. Alyson Hannigan has hinted in interviews that Benz was very mean towards her in particular. The incident prompted Benz to clean up her act, and she reappeared on the spinoffAngel and was brought back for a few more Buffy episodes. Years later, she was regarded by the cast and crew of Dexter as one of the nicest and most agreeable cast members.

Angus Deayton was presenter of Have I Got News for You until lurid tales of drugs and disguised prostitutes came to light. He was mocked relentlessly on the show, then booted out. Paul Merton later claimed that it wasn't Deayton's behavior itself that led to his dismissal, but rather that it would make it near-impossible for him to fulfill his role of skewering politicians and other public figures for the exact same behavior; the few episodes he filmed after the story broke suffer for that very reason. The format relies on his playing the Straight Man, and he'd become the Butt Monkey. He later hosted Would I Lie to You? for its first two series before being replaced from it as well.

Subverted with Richard Bacon, who was dismissed for doing cocaine. He has since done a lot of other, grown-up television since getting kicked off the show, even on the BBC itself.

Subverted with Peter Duncan, whose appearance in a soft porn movie was revealed soon after he joined Blue Peter, but The BBC stood by him and he remained on the show for several years.

Isaiah Washington's contract to the show Grey's Anatomy was not renewed for the show's fourth season as a result of some offensive homophobic remarks he made to T. R. Knight, along with the cast's embarrassment over his remarks, including denying it (while using the exact word, which really didn't help) in a post awards show press conference. He returned in an episode near the end of the tenth season as part of Sandra Oh's departure from the series.

On Scandal, Columbus Short's Harrison Wright ended up Killed Off for Real after his last appearance in the third season finale after continual domestic violence allegations made it untenable for Shonda Rhimes to keep him on the series further.

Yeoman Rand from Star Trek: The Original Series, if William Shatner is to be believed. While Grace Lee Whitney did have alcohol/drug issues, others say Rand was transferred to another starship due to the writers not wanting a love interest for Kirk on the ship, while others claim that she was fired after threatening to expose her sexual assault by a studio executive. However, Grace Lee Whitney did get to reprise her role as Rand in two of the Star Trek movies (Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the transporter operator and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as a member of the Excelsior's crew) and returned for the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback", taking place during VI.

Michael Moriarty claims that he was written off of Law & Order because of his open criticism of Janet Reno, to which NBC took umbrage. Dick Wolf claims that his reaction to Reno was just the latest and most public example of Moriarty's "erratic behavior" and it was his on-set behavior that got him canned. He later fled to Canada and publicly declared himself a "political exile" (over an acting gig?).

Allegedly happened twice in Homicide: Life on the Street. First Brody was allegedly written out because Max Perlich had drug and arrest issues. Then, more controversially, it's been rumored that Howard was dropped because of press stories about unpleasant events involving Melissa Leo and her then ex-partner, despite the fact that she was most likely the victimized party in the situation. Notably, Max Perlich played Whistler from the above Buffy example, and was not carried over to Angel because of his issues.

Alastair Stewart, British newsreader and host of documentary series Police, Camera, Action! had his contract terminated in 2003 for a drink-driving offense (his second one, he'd referred to it previously in a November 1994 episode, the show's second episode) and was relegated to intro and outros in the rebooted version of it, which was now presented by Alastair Stewart and Adrian Simpson, as of September 2007. Surprisingly, he was allowed to present the special edition episode Ultimate Pursuits in September 2007.

Others say Bonet (who apparently is an even bigger Cloud Cuckoolander than her character, Denise) constantly butted heads with Bill Cosby, who used Angel Heart as a "Last Straw" excuse. Cosby himself would fatally slip up decades later.

In 2014, Bill Cosby planned to return to NBC with a new sitcom. Once the project seemed to be heading to greenlight stage, over a dozen women came forward claiming that Cosby had raped them years ago, and later a deposition from 2005 was unearthed where Cosby admitted under oath to procuring drugs so he could have sex with women who had taken them. The once devout fan base of Cosby began turning on him, and NBC, overwhelmed by public pressure, canceled the sitcom project before it could even reach development stage. Local stations and TV Land also began pulling reruns of The Cosby Show from the airwaves in response to the allegations, with the latter going as far as removing any mention of the show from their website.

Chris Langham was written out of The Thick of It, despite playing the main character. Being arrested for downloading kiddie porn will do that to you. Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) became the de facto main character from the 2007 specials onward.

Rebecca Gayheart's involvement in a 2001 vehicular manslaughter may have contributed to her departure from Dead Like Me after 5 episodes. In that series, she played the role of a "Grim Reaper", helping the dead pass on to the afterlife. According to this, Gayheart's character Betty was written out by the fifth episode intentionally, though the series creator, Bryan Fuller, had to fight with studio execs to prevent Gayheart from being replaced by another actress. If Fuller hadn't left the series early in the first season, Betty would have returned by the beginning of the second season, which is what he had intended. Once he left, the studio execs changed the plotline for the second season so that Betty would never return.

Julie McCoy was written out of The Love Boat after Lauren Tewes's cocaine addiction made it impossible to perform her job. It didn't help that she started making very bizarre claims to reporters, such as the claim that she could tie knots with her toes.

Kevin Lloyd played the very popular Tosh Lines in The Bill from 1988 to 1998. He was known as a drinker, but sadly, throughout this period, his drinking gave way to full-blown alcoholism. It affected his professionalism, and ultimately he was fired after it caused him to arrive late for work one time too many. If the decision to fire him was intended to help him, it backfired tragically: Kevin Lloyd's drinking problem cost him his life a mere week after he was sacked.

Fictional example: The Fast Show featured the character of Arthur Atkinson, a 1940s music-hall comedian. In the last episode featuring the character, his audience walks out en masse after he makes a crude joke during a performance, and we are told his career never recovered.

Actor Jim Fitzpatrick, who played Pierce Riley on the U.S. soap opera All My Children was abruptly fired in early 1996 after an incident in a New York City bar which involved him assaulting a woman—groping her and trying to drag her off into an empty hallway where he would no doubt have taken it further had other bar patrons not intervened. Similarly, actor Michael Nader was fired from his role as Dimitri Marick in early 2001 after a second arrest for drug use. Producers had bought his excuses for a previous arrest for drunk driving and had attempted to make allowances for him to attend rehab, but his second arrest was the last straw for them.

Initially played straight by actress Melissa Reeves after she quit Days of Our Lives in late 1995. It was later discovered that her husband had walked in on her and her costar having sex in her dressing room and had demanded that she quit the show right then and there if she wanted to save their marriage. The result was a tearful early-morning phone call to the show's producers informing them that she would not be reporting to work that day or any time in the near future. After several years of considerable uproar—along with the personal fallout, Days sued her for breach of contract—not only was their marriage saved (they're still together as of November 2014), but the trope was eventually averted when she returned to the show in 2000 for six years, and returned again in 2010.

Chicago sportswriter Jay Mariotti, a regular panelist on the ESPN show Around the Horn, was fired from the show in 2010 after he was arrested for domestic assault. He would return to ESPN in a reduced capacity in 2013, one that didn't include his return to Around the Horn.

When racy (though not nude) pictures of Frenchie Davis emerged, she was dismissed from the show.

Both Corey Clark and Jermaine Jones were removed for having criminal records that they lied about.

After boosting viewer figures for Ally McBeal, Robert Downey, Jr. was fired from the show (and his character Larry Paul written out) after being arrested for violating his parole. It soon became apparent that this was actually worse than just a Role Ending Misdemeanor as ratings went back down again and the show was cancelled at the end of the fifth season, making the parole violation a Show Ending Misdemeanor in the process.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, where do we begin with Charlie Sheen? Allegations of domestic abuse didn't cut it. Getting arrested and put in jail in Aspen for violating a restraining order didn't cut it. No, for him to get kicked off of the show, it took: Sheen getting sent to the hospital for suffering a hernia while engaging in what was, by all accounts, a cocaine-fueled orgy; taking a leave of absence to go into rehab, putting the show on hiatus in the process; calling up Alex Jones and whining about the show's executive producer, his co-stars, and the higher-ups at CBS; and demanding $3 million per episode once he returned (compared to his previous salary of $1.8 million per episode, already a rather staggering amount) for Warner Bros. to finally drop him, killing his character (and making sure Sheen himself could never, EVER come back to the show), and replacing him with Ashton Kutcher.

Angus T. Jones, who played Jake Harper in the series, found the show's crude subject matter to be conflicting toward his religious upbringing. It all boiled over when Jones told Christianity Today that he was a "paid hypocrite" and that the show was "filth". Once the comments were made public, CBS suspended Jones and announced that his character would be reduced to a recurring role in the eleventh season. It was then decided to have his role completely written off the series, and did not appear at all in the eleventh season. The fallout from the controversy led Jones to be blacklisted from any Hollywood work aside from Two and a Half Men and he retired shortly after his character was written off the series.

Both Jones and Sheen were eventually invited back for the Grand Finale. Only the former accepted, however; the latter insisted on a hook for a Sequel Series, which was of course rejected.

Sheen went on to star on FX's Anger Management. While he's pulled some prima donna behavior there as well, he was able to get Selma Blair fired for complaining about it, so he seems to be invulnerable for now. Although...

Adrienne Bailon staged a fake nude photo controversy involving a stolen laptop with her agent and then-boyfriend Rob Kardashian in order to boost her fading career. The controversy caused a cancellation of The Cheetah Girls performance at the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and eventually led to the Cheetah Girls just disbanding completely. Previously, Bailon's recurring character was also dropped from That's So Raven because of backstage catfights with Raven-Symoné. Raven eventually left the Cheetah Girls as well.

Artie Lange was fired from the original cast of MADtv after season two due to his cocaine habit. A few years later, he more or less lost his job on Howard Stern's radio show for the same reason, but in that case he did get it back eventually. Ironically FOX did allow Artie to do a cameo on MADtv where they make fun of the reason he was kicked off. In 2014 though he earned a ban from ESPN for a string of tweets where he described his graphic and racist thoughts about what the African-American moderator of First Take could do to him...to not be detailed, he described a disturbing Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemmings roleplay.

Jessica Biel did a racy photo shoot specifically to get out of wholesome family drama 7th Heaven because she felt her squeaky-clean image was making her miss out on serious dramatic roles. It didn't quite get her fired, but it did drastically reduce her screen time.

Averted by Tommy Chong on That '70s Show following his DUI arrest and sentencing. The producers told him he was chosen for his role because he was a stoner when he worried about his future on the show; true to their word, his character was Put on a Bus for the duration of Chong's sentence and returned from a vacation when Chong was released.

After Mitchell Musso's DUI bust, his character on Pair of Kings moved to Chicago and was replaced by a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, as Disney has a rather hardline stance toward reckless behavior (see the Adrienne Bailon example above). His hidden camera show PrankStars was similarly killed four episodes into its run, with the remainder of the episodes that had not aired burned off in the United Kingdom solely to get copyright protection. On a side note, he did not lose his other Disney job, voicing Jeremy on Phineas and Ferb; it helped his case that it's one of their most popular shows and, unlike PoK, would be extremely noticeable and difficult if they recast or got rid of the character, and also that the creators spoke on his behalf to let him stay.

Brett Ratner resigned from producing the 2012 Oscars under public pressure after he made a gay slur and bragged about his alleged sexual encounters with Olivia Munn and Lindsay Lohan. This led to the scheduled host, Eddie Murphy, resigning as well because he didn't want to perform without Ratner. Billy Crystal replaced Murphy.

A series ending one: HBO had agreed to give Luck a second season very early in its run, but then quickly cancelled it after the public relations nightmare of three horses being killed on set. However, all three deaths were purely accidental, and something HBO was trying much harder to prevent than other producers of horse-riding TV shows.

Played straight and then averted with William Talman, who portrayed D. A. Hamilton Burger on Perry Mason. He was arrested under circumstances which CBS decided violated the morals clause in his contract and subsequently fired. He was found innocent at trial, however, and thanks to vigorous campaigning by his co-stars was eventually rehired.

Rip Torn's character on 30 Rock, Don Geiss, died of a heart attack between seasons after Torn's increasingly bizarre behavior culminated in him breaking into a bank in 2010. His character in the Men in Black franchise was similarly McLeaned in Men in Black III for the same reasons.

In the Heat of the Night series co-star Howard Rollins was eventually dropped from the show after repeated legal problems, including cocaine possession and a DUI.

Actor and comedian Fred Willard lost his job as the narrator of PBS show Market Warriors after being arrested for lewd acts in a pornography theatre, and his ABC series was also yanked off the air prematurely, resulting in a pair of Missing Episodes.

Duane "Dog" Chapman's 1976 murder conviction (which was basically for being in the wrong place at the wrong time) scuttled his plans to appear on Celebrity Big Brother. The UK routinely denies travel visas to those with a murder conviction on their record, and did so in Chapman's case, making it impossible for him to take part.

Alexa Nikolas was removed from Zoey 101 because she didn't get along with Jamie Lynn Spears.

Though contrary to popular belief, this is not what happened to the show itself. Filming of the last season was completed by the time Jamie Lynn announced her pregnancy. Nickelodeon decided to show support and air the show despite complaints.

Actor Northern Calloway, who played David, began to have a decline not only in physical health, but mental health in the 1980's. He had a nervous breakdown leading to him getting jailed for a rampage in Nashville in 1980. However, he still returned to playing David and promised to take his prescribed lithium. However, the producers were skeptical of how long he would last and gradually ended David's relationship with Maria (Sonia Manzano) and eventually had him take over Mr. Hooper's store when Mr. Hooper died. His behavior would remain erratic, and after biting music coordinator Danny Epstein in a scuffle and intruding to the high school of Allison Bartlett, who plays Gina, and proposing to her, Calloway was fired/forced to resign and hospitalized and David was written out. Calloway died in a facility in Ossining in 1990 of a heart attack caused by exhaustive psychosis/excited delirium syndrome, literally a fatal nervous breakdown. Unlike Mr. Hooper, they did not make David die offscreen or pay tribute to Calloway.

Jay Thomas was fired from Cheers after someone called him on his radio show asking what it was like working there and he replied "Ugh, it's horrible. For one thing, I have to kiss Rhea Perlman." While Perlman happened to be listening, no less.

In a sort of amusing irony, Watchdog and Rogue Traders co host Dan Penteado was apparently fired after being arrested for benefit fraud and jailed. Considering the shows are meant to be about rip offs and con artists, this ended up being mentioned by one of the rogues confronted on the show afterwards.

E4 have tried to deny it, but it's widely believed that Kelly being Put on a Bus between two seasons of Misfits with no proper farewell scene was due to Lauren Socha's conviction of racially aggravated assault in 2012.

In an example similar to that which happened on The Cosby Show, Star Trek: The Next Generation had a Cute Clumsy Girl character named Sonya Gomez, played by Lycia Naff. She was intended to be a recurring character and appeared in two early episodes, but the character was never mentioned again because Naff took a role as the triple-breasted hooker in Total Recall (1990).

After the death of one of its participants during production on the second season, MTV executed Buckwild by canceling it and clamping down tightly on the rights, going so far as to outright refuse to allow its producers to shop the series to another network.

Paula Deen's long-running show was canceled after audio of her using the "N word" and making off-color jokes concerning minorities and Jews was discovered. After her admittance to using racial slurs with no regrets whatsoever and the resulting backlash against her, the network chose not to renew Paula Deen's contract and ceased any and all involvement with her. Shortly after, Deen's endorsement deals began to rapidly fall from the sky. At least one article has been written that suggests that the N-word incident was just the nail in the coffin, and Food Network had already been trying to get rid of her anyway because she didn't draw the 18-49 crowd advertisers love.

Robert Irvine was suspended from his first series, Dinner: Impossible, after it was discovered that he had padded his resume rather outrageously (including claiming to have worked on Charles and Diana's wedding cake and having been a White House chef), and he was replaced by Iron Chef Michael Symon. However, this trope ended up being subverted in Irvine's case in the end, since a combination of his popularity with viewers and his eating humble pie brought him back to the show after seven months out in the cold.

Have you ever wondered why Lenny McNab, winner of The Next Food Network Star's tenth season, never wound up with his show? Shortly afterward, allegations of him being racist, sexist, and otherwise rude toward various Food Network personalities behind everyone's backs cropped up. As a result, Lenny wound up being let go and so far is the only winner on the show to be denied his Food Network program.

Jeff Conaway's drug problems got him fired from Taxi after he was discovered in his trailer too strung out to work. His character Bobby Wheeler's lines were divided among other characters, causing the producers to realize they didn't need Conaway and the headaches he caused at all. His career had a slight bounce with a recurring-then-permanent character in Babylon 5, but his habits kicked in harder after that series, with only bit parts in films and movies, including a Harsher in Hindsight guest role in Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew before his death in 2011.

Bob Vila, the host of the PBS series This Old House, was a real pain in the neck for the show's construction crew to deal with. Among other things, he ended up hogging the spotlight. However, the last straw was when, before the 1989 season, he appeared in ads for Rickel Home Centers, a competitor to series sponsor Home Depot. He was shortly fired for endangering the series, as Home Depot had dropped its sponsorship as a direct result of the ads.

RKO General was permanently banned from broadcasting in 1987 due to a wide variety of licensing misconducts dating back to 1965. The FCC vowed to reject any appeals on the decision; however, it gave RKO General the opportunity to wind down its operations peaceably, which it did by 1991, after which it went out of business. An epic case of a Company Ending Misdemeanor if there ever was one.

Richard Dawson, the original host of Family Feud (1976-85, most of which was spent with concurrent versions on ABC and in syndication). He was tapped as the show's host after having developed his television skills as a panelist on Match Game, which like Feud, was created by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. Once Feud became popular, Dawson became increasingly sullen on the Match Game set before he was booted off in 1978. On Feud, he built up a nature as a total prima donna who would clash with nearly all of the staff, but still, the show was popular enough that he stayed on for all nine years. Dawson's only roles afterward were as the evil game show host in The Running Man and an unsold 1988 pilot for a revival of You Bet Your Life. When Goodson revived Feud in 1988 for CBS, he brought on Ray Combs as the new host. By 1994, with Feud flagging in the ratings and Mark Goodson no longer alive, his son Jonathan (who took over the production company) decided to bring back Dawson for one last season. Although Dawson had mellowed some in the intervening years, his return was not enough to save the show, and it was canceled again. When Feud was brought back again in 1999, Dawson was once again asked to make so much as a cameo, but Dawson declared that he wanted nothing more to do with the show.

Due to offscreen tensions between Brian Eppes (Michael) and Salim Grant (Jason), among them an incident where Grant played the race card on Eppes ("It's because of my skin color, isn't it!?"), Jason lasted only three videos in the Barney and the Backyard Gang series before suddenly disappearing; his role in the series was subsequently filled by Derek starting with the fourth video in the series, "Waiting for Santa".

Before production of the seventh (and last) season began, Fantasy Island co-star Hervé Villechaize was fired from the series following a salary dispute. The move devastated Villechaize's career, as he was unable to find any decent work for the next decade. This, coupled with his persistent health problems he had for much of his life, led him to shoot himself in his North Hollywood home.

Stephen Collins' career was already flagging following the cancellation of 7th Heaven, along with his highly-publicized divorce with Faye Grant. The straw that finally broke the camel's back, however, came when TMZ leaked an audio recording of Collins admitting to Grant during a therapy session that he had molested several underage girls for years. The massive media and public fallout directly resulted in multiple stations, TV Guide Network and Up TV pulling reruns of 7th Heaven from circulation (CBS Drama in the UK also abruptly pulled the show from its schedule), Seth MacFarlane firing him from production of the sequel to Ted, being forced to resign from his post in the Screen Actors Guild Board, his character in Scandal getting McLeaned after announcing his intent to return in Season 4, and all of his agents dropping him.

In The Adventures of Superboy, Superboy's first actor John Haymes Newton was fired and replaced by Gerard Christopher after a DUI arrest and because Newton demanded a 20% pay raise.

Within the course of a year, Discovery Communications, parent company of TLC and the Discovery Channel, was hit with three child abuse controversies, leading to the cancellation of all three shows:

TLC's reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was promptly canceled after TMZ revealed that Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson's mother June Shannon ("Mama June" in the series) was dating a man convicted of child molestation a decade before. What made things more shocking was the later revelation that the victim of the molestation was June's daughter, Anna, and that she was the one that blew the whistle.

Two months before, the Discovery Channel canceled Sons Of Guns after star Will Hayden was arrested and charged with multiple child rape offenses. His firearms company promptly severed all ties with him in an attempt to clean their hands of the matter.

Josh Duggar took his whole family with him after he confessed to molesting several girls, including his sisters, when he was a teenager. He resigned from his position at the Family Research Council and TLC pulled repeats of 19 Kids and Counting from their lineup, before finally cancelling it after several weeks of uncertainty as to the show's future.

Before he began hosting Real Time on HBO, Bill Maher had Politically Incorrect, a politically centered late-night talk show exploring controversial topics and subject that were unusual for a typical talk show. It was so successful on Comedy Central that after five years at that network it moved to ABC, where it gained even higher ratings. However, it all came to an end in an episode airing just six days after 9/11, in which Maher agreed with conservative activist Dinesh D'Souza over disputing then-U.S. President George W. Bush's claim that the 9/11 hijackers were "cowards", stating that "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away." The massive public outcry resulted by the offending comments led to the show bleeding sponsors and viewers, enough that ABC canceled the series in July of the following year due to continued loss of advertiser supportnote Which countered popular belief that the comments were a direct cause for the cancellation. However, HBO, who co-produced and co-owned Politically Incorrect, stood by Maher's side and offered him another go on their own channel with Real Time, a similar talk show that years later would prove to be more successful than Politically Incorrect ever was.

Tony Rosato, formerly of Saturday Night Live and SCTV, barely averted this. After his domestic violence incident and arrest in 2005 he took a leave from show business in order to treat his mental health problems, much of which stemmed with his divorce. Although he came clean and has been offered small roles in various Canadian indie movies, he has nowhere near the public drawing power he used to have.

Vine star Curtis Lepore was dropped from Rainn Wilson's TV show, Hollywood and Vine after Lepore was accused of raping his girlfriend in early 2014. He's still very active on Vine, however.

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson's contract with the BBC was not renewed after he got into an offstage argument over catering arrangements with an assistant producer that eventually resulted in Clarkson punching said producer in the face. He was initially suspended after the highly-publicized incident, but when a BBC investigation concluded that he indeed did punch the producernote Physical violence between employees is an unendurable breach of rules in the BBC's employee ethics code, the hammer was ultimately dropped; his contract, which was up for renewal, would not be picked up.note Notably, he was not banned from the BBC, going on to appear on Have I Got News for You and QI a few months afterward. Co-presenters James May and Richard Hammond, also looking at contract renewals, decided not to go on without Clarkson and left the series as well. The BBC decided to continue Top Gear without them, hiring new presenters instead. Meanwhile, Clarkson, Hammond, and May (along with long-time friend and producer Andy Wilman), ended up getting an impressive deal with Amazon to create The Grand Tour, a Spiritual Successor to their version of Top Gear.

Probably the most famous example of a Career Ending Misdemeanour in the British media came in 1970 when former pirate radio DJ turned TV chat show host Simon Dee killed his career in spectacular fashion. First, he was overheard making an off-colour guess as to how his line-manager's daughter had secured a plum job at the BBC, involving the word "blow-job". Second, he attempted to spike a friend's pre-broadcast drink with LSD prior to going on air with the London Weekend Television programme he hosted; unfortunately the drink was "snaffled" by his studio guest, James Bond film actor George Lazenby, who consequently went before the cameras high as a kite, rambling incoherently about having a list of American Senators who were in on the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy, to the utter confusion of Dee and the recording's other guests, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Though the episode was pre-recorded rather than broadcast live, this incident was the last straw for LWT, and Dee's contract was not renewed. Lazenby did make other movies and TV shows, but ultimately went to California where he became a successful and wealthy property developer; Dee was last seen washing buses for London Transport and making very occasional appearances on "Whatever happened to...?" programmes before his death in 2009.

Devon Anderson, who played the original Sonny Valentine on Hollyoaks, was dismissed for "time-keeping issues". Sonny was hastily written out and not seen again until the character was re-cast seven years later.

Subverted in the case of Soupy Sales, who was suspended from his locally-broadcast live program in New York for asking children to send him money (which he infamously described as "green pieces of paper" in the broadcast) as a result of him being upset for having to work on a holidaynote Specifically, New Years Day in 1965. Although Sales intended this to be a joke, money did actually start coming to the television station (though not as much as originally thought) after the broadcast, and both station management and outraged parents were not pleased. Perhaps listing the address of his station wasn't such a good idea.

Ironically, this ended up helping his career, as numerous children began protesting his suspension outside the station in the days that followed. Ratings for the show began skyrocketing following the end of his suspension and remained on the air for another year. His autobiography Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times from 2001 explains it all perfectly.

Rich Fields, The Announcer on The Price Is Right between 2004-2010, left the show in September 2010 for reasons that were never made truly clear. The producers claimed that they wanted to find an announcer with skill in improv comedy to play off Drew Carey (who took over hosting from Bob Barker in 2007). Other sources claim that Rich had personal problems, including identity theft, that made him unable to continue the job (although he filled in on Wheel of Fortune for a short time after their announcer Charlie O'Donnell died - Jim Thornton got the job, for the record - and followed Drew over to Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza a year later).

In what ended up as a show ending event, Christopher Titus admitted that he was the one responsible for Titus getting canceled, outlined in one of his comedy specials. He had spent three seasons fighting the Executive Meddling at every turn, not helped that the FOX network had a short turnover for its president during this period. In a meeting for season three, the new network president offered a direction the show could go, which he opposed on a fundamental level. But instead of playing nice, he tried calling out her out for the stupid suggestion and he expected Braveheart-esque support behind him. Instead the season contract finished out, and he was told at the last possible legal moment that they were not renewed. He admits now that if you call your boss an idiot enough times, they will fire you.

Maine's Fox affiliate used to have a pair of spokespeople for their kids' lineup: a human and a guy in a fox costume. The first human was fired on charges of pedophilia... then, eventually, so was his replacement.

Rumor has it that Orlando Jones' character on Sleepy Hollow was written out in season 2 because the actor openly criticized the new showrunners.

The Frugal Gourmet's slot on PBS's Saturday afternoon schedulenote 1:00 PM was given to other shows (most recently, reruns of This Old House) after the former's host, Jeff Smith, got caught up in sexual abuse allegations; though he was able to settle out of court, the damage had been done, and his television career was in ruins.

An anti-LGBT law in Tennessee granting immunity to counselors who redirect LGBT patients has been pointed to as a contributory factor to ABC's surprise decision to cancel longtime survivor and cult classic Nashvillenote which had up to that point been known for being renewed each season despite constantly wavering ratings, and whose showrunner Dee Johnson is, ironically, an out lesbian; Word of Saint Paul even hinted at the possibility of an activism-fueled axing. Which is all that needs to be said about that, really. The series was picked up by Country Music Television in around June 2016.

Thomas Gibson (Agent Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner) saw his contract terminated in Criminal Minds after allegedly attacking a writer over creative differences in a episode he was directing.

Japanese television star Becky lost several of her hosting gigs and most of her sponsors after it was revealed that she had an affair with Enon Kawatani, the frontman for the Math Rock band Gesu no Kiwami Otome. On the other hand, Kawatani's career was largely unaffected because of what Western observers have described as a double standard in Japanese celebrity culture. In this culture, the fallout from such an affair would be more harmful to the career of a girl-next door TV host than to the male lead singer of an indie rock band.

Gesu No Kiwami Otome lost out on only a single job due to the controversy: The opportunity to record a theme song for the latest Crayon Shin-chan film. Despite the news breaking shortly before the release of their second album Ryōseibai, the album still debuted at number one in the Japanese charts.

The X Factor has had numerous controversies which have led to contestants being forced to withdraw from the competition, leaving the show as a result:

During Season 3 Avenue, one of the groups, was booted from the show by their mentor Louie Walsh after it was discovered they were already in a contract with a record label whose boss tried to exploit the show for publicity. Luckily they weren't far enough that another band couldn't be brought in to replace them.

Emily, one of Season 4's contestants, was kicked out on the second episode of the live shows after a video of her Happy Slappingnote Attacking someone else with the intention of catching it on camera a teenage girl was discovered on YouTube.

Frankie Cocozza was booted from the show during Season 8 after boasting about doing cocaine in the house where contestants stayed for the competition.

Brooks Way, a group participating in Season 13, were put on suspension mere hours before the first live show and kicked out before the results shownote The live shows are split in two - the Saturday Singing where everyone presents their acts, and Sunday Results where the votes from the fans are counted and a contestant is eliminated after it emerged that one of them had violently assaulted his ex-girlfriend as well as evidence that he regularly beat up his own brother, the other half of the band.

Not even the judges are safe. Tulisa Contostavlos was removed from the competition after an exposé was published about her dealing cocaine but her legal case collapsed after the reporter was caught lying in court.

Music

In an example of a Role Ending Felony, Tripp Eisen of Static-X was fired after two counts of statutory rape, the first of which he was arrested and released on bail after a few hours in custody. The second occurred a few weeks later, after he was arrested for having sex with a 13 year old after grooming her on the Internet for three months while posing as a Static-X fan. He was fired as soon as the band heard about it.

Being arrested for possession of cocaine is a big part of why Steven Page left Barenaked Ladies in 2009. Having it happen right before the band was about to play music from their kid's album at several Disney Music Block Party concerts certainly did not help things. (The band canceled the appearances because of this incident.)

Sakura, drummer of L'arc-en-Ciel, was kicked from the band after a drug bust in 1997 that led to threats by the band's label to drop it, as well as enforced boycotts of their work until he was removed.

Buck Tick's Hisashi Imai is an aversion of the frequent application of this trope in Japanese music, as he was, in 1989, arrested and convicted for the use of LSD. He was able to get out on probation relatively soon, and being the bandleader and the band being indies helped - they got right back to where they were once Imai got out of jail.

Ian Watkins, lead singer of the popular rock group Lostprophets, got caught in 2012 trying to buy and have sex with a one-year-old boy, as well as having tons of child pornography images. After some attempts to fight the charges, Watkins finally pleaded guilty and is now serving a 35-year prison sentence and is registered as a sex offender. Needless to say, the band split soon after this shocking reveal. The other members subsequently formed a new band called No Devotion.

Gaza broke up after a blogger accused their lead singer Jon Parkin of raping her.

Enabler broke up and Jeff Lohrber left music for good after former bassist and Lohrber's ex-girlfriend Amanda Daniels went public about the details of their relationship, which included some truly horrifying accounts of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and painted Lohrber as an unstable and deeply disturbed individual who needed professional help and absolutely would not get it.

As I Lay Dying broke up after lead singer Tim Lambesis was arrested after attempting to hire a hitman to murder his ex-wife. The remaining members and Shane Blay of Oh, Sleeper subsequently formed another band, Wovenwar.

Ben Bennett got kicked out of Warbringer immediately following a major tour after a long history of being a complete asshole culminated in his saying some incredibly cruel things to then-drummer Nic Ritter one night until Ritter ran off and punched a dumpster in anger hard enough to break his hand, putting him out of commission for the rest of the tour and making John Kevill angry enough to physically pull him out of the van and stomp on his head.

Mauro Mercurio was fired from Hour of Penance after he drunkenly caused thousands of dollars to the backstage area of a Spanish club and very nearly got the entire band arrested.

It's a good joke, but it was Canadian officials that denied him entry to the country, not his bandmates. This happened at the very beginning of the tour, so he let them down in a big way. On the other hand, Motörhead might not have happened otherwise, so maybe Lemmy's speed addiction could be viewed as a real-life example of a Good Bad Bug.

Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica for his substance abuse issues. Unlike the rest of "Alcoholica" Mustaine was a violent and angry drunk, who had started fights both on and off stage. It's rumoured that the song "Master of Puppets" was a shot at Dave's cocaine habit.

In a Heel–Face Turn on that issue, Mustaine would then go on to fire Chris Poland from Megadeth for stealing and selling the band's equipment for drug money and Gar Samuelson for being so compromised on such a frequent basis due to his extremely heavy drinking and heroin usage that he could barely function.

Nachtmystium (and, by extent, Blake Judd) finally folded for good after Judd blew his absolute last chance to save his career after many years of scamming fans and screwing over bandmates in shady business deals when he failed to send preorder copies of The World We Left Behind that had been purchased from him and then initiated a social media blackout after enough people went after him, which prompted Century Media Records to send the copies themselves, throw Nachtmystium off the label, and blacklist Judd.

Japanese group Hysteric Blue broke up after their guitarist plead guilty to being a serial rapist.

Iced Earth briefly included guitarist Ernie Carletti, but before they had recorded anything with him he was arrested on rape charges and immediately fired from the band.

Coheed and Cambria bassist Michael Todd was fired from the band in 2011 after being charged with armed robbery of a pharmacy only a few hours before a show in Massachusetts.

The Smashing Pumpkins knew about drummer Jimmy Chamberlin's drug problem for some time. They tolerated it until touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of an overdose while taking drugs with Chamberlin in July 1996. He was fired shortly afterward, but later got clean and rejoined the band in late 1998.

Gidget Gein, bassist for Marilyn Manson, was fired via telegram on Christmas Eve 1993 while in rehab for his latest overdose. Rather like the Dave Mustaine/Metallica situation, this was ironic as the members of Marilyn Manson were almost all notorious drug addicts. Gein died of a fatal overdose in 2008.

Brian Jones, the founder of The Rolling Stones and their first leader, was fired from the band as due to many drug-related arrests he couldn't get a visa for an US tour. Less than one month later Jones died under mysterious circumstances.

Shane McGowan was canned by The Pogues in 1991 for his unreliability due to his crippling alcoholism. He would rejoin the band a decade later.

Chris Brown... Make some popcorn, this will take a while. He began as a highly popular pop artist with a boy next door image. He was known for his excellent dancing and being a good wholesome type of guy girls can bring home to mother. He was even promoted by some media outlets as 'The Prince of Pop' claiming that he would pick up where the 'King of Pop' left off. His positive image became even stronger when it was confirmed that he was dating popular female pop artist, Rihanna, who was just as famous. During the American Music Awards show in 2009, both were supposed to be the toast of the event. Instead, everyone was shocked and horrified when they discovered that Brown savagely beat Rihanna while on the road to the awards show and left her for dead. He soon turned himself in. Pictures surfaced on the internet of Rihanna's battered face and Chris Brown became demonized in the media. Despite all of this, Chris Brown got probation, was eventually given another chance by a lot of fans, and came back with a solid album called F.A.M.E. However, Brown still got himself in more trouble over the years, until finally in 2013 after a fight outside of a hotel, his probation for the Rihanna attack was revoked and he has been in and out of jail and rehab.

Cee Lo Green's comedy series The Good Life was canceled by TBS shortly after getting picked up for a second season, following shocking comments on his Twitter page related to sexual battery accusations made in 2012. Green took down his Twitter page (then later reactivated it) and apologized for the tweets, but the damage had already been done. TBS proceeded to make him an Un-Person, taking down the show's website and removing the series from the TBS mobile app. Some speculate that his 2014 departure from The Voice was for much the same reasons.

Drummer Kliph Scurlock was allegedly kicked out of the Flaming Lips in 2014 for publically criticizing Christina Fallin, frontwoman for Pink Pony - and daughter of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin - after she donned a Native-American headdress in an ill-conceived publicity photo. Fallin's publicity photo had earned her a lot of criticism, but apparently Lips frontman Wayne Coyne was not among those critics - he posted a photo of three of his friends wearing headdresses, with the explicit caption of "did our best @christinafallin pose."

Roger Waters fired Richard Wright from Pink Floyd in 1979 after he developed a cocaine addiction, as well as refusing to cut short his vacation when the recording of The Wall fell behind schedule. (He was eventually forced to hire Wright back for the tour)

Milli Vanilli's fame and fortune all came to an abrupt end just a year after their breakthrough album, Girl You Know It's True, was released. The album's producer Frank Farian admitted that the duo didn't actually provide the vocals nor wrote any of the songs for the album, creating a chain reaction of events that resulted in the duo's Grammy Award for Best New Artist being withdrawn, Arista Records voluntarily destroying all unsold copies of Girl You Know It's True and the album masters, and dozens of lawsuits against the duo from customers demanding refunds. Despite this, they actually didn't immediately die off from the fallout, as the duo continued performing up until co-frontman Rob Pilatus died of a drug overdose in 1998.

Electronic dance music saw a resurgence in popularity in The New Tens thanks to the popularity of dubstep, trap music, elecro/big room house and trance. However, during the early 90s, house and eurodance were the most popular genres of electronic music. During that time, two popular dance groups, Black Box and C&C Music Factory topped the charts with hit singles and albums. Both groups used an R&B singer named Martha Wash on their tracks. However, Wash, being an overweight woman, wasn't featured on any of the music videos as both groups used skinny models to lip sync her vocals. However, the problem came about when both groups didn't give Wash credit for her vocals and actually credited the women in the music videos instead. This led to Martha launching a successful lawsuit and a law was created where record companies had to give credit to everyone who works on a track, no matter how minor the role. After the scandal, both music groups lost their fans and eventually fell apart, while Martha Wash is remembered as the voice of the 90s dance era.

Gary Glitter's long term Glam Rock career came to a crashing halt in the late 1990s after he was found guilty of possessing child pornography. Any faint hope of a comeback was dashed in the mid 2000s after he was convicted of sexually abusing minors in Vietnam. Suffice to say, he's now a pariah throughout the UK. Further offences came to light in 2012 and in 2015 Glitter was sentenced to sixteen years in jail meaning he will be at least seventy-eight before he might be released and possibly up to eighty-six. At this point it's less about whether Glitter's career is over (it is) and more about whether he will die before he's released.

Michelle Shocked committed career suicide in 2013 by publicly speaking out against same-sex marriage at the Yoshi's nightclub in (of all places) San Francisco, causing the rest of the performance and all other future appearances to be canceled. Made even worse when Shocked attempted to explain the rant....only to have an audio recording of her rant leaked online and completely invalidate her explanation.

Todd Harrell, the original bassist for 3 Doors Down, was removed from the band in April 2013 after Harrell was charged with vehicular homicide in Nashville, Tennessee for a fatal accident caused by his addiction to prescription drugs and painkillers. His trial has not taken place as of 2015 thanks to him being in drug rehab since the accident. 3 Doors Down eventually hired Justin Biltonen to take Harrell's place beginning with a performance in Moscow at the end of the following month.

The original vocalist for Iron Maiden, Paul Di'Anno, was fired after his drug problem seriously started to disrupt the band and force them to drop out of gigs. He's had an off-again, on-again career since, but has never stopped being known as "the first Iron Maiden vocalist who was fired".

On 2014, AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd was arrested and charged with attempting to procure a murder, threatening to kill, possession of methamphetamine and possession of cannabis, following a police raid on his home. The band promptly decided to replace Rudd with Chris Slade who'd played drums with them from 1989 until Rudd's return in 1994.

In early 2016 Sony Music dropped their business support for Dr Luke and terminated his contract a year earlier than it would've expired following an attempt by Kesha to have her contract with the producer terminated by a court of law after claiming he sexually assaulted her and she considered it cruel to have to work with her abusernote Ke$ha had signed on to Dr Luke's label on the condition that she would record 6 albums with Dr Luke. By the time the alleged incident occurred she had produced 4 albums and hasn't had any output as an artist since. Despite the fact that her case was thrown out of court (she had previously made a statement under oath that he hadn't assaulted her but redacted her statement) the negative PR linked to the company's ties with Dr Luke as well as outcry from other artists including Lady Ga Ga and Adele forced their hand.

Solo musician Jake Mcelfresh, playing under the name Front Porch Step when opening for bands such as State Champs and Handguns, was accused of sexual harassment and predatory behavior by several young women in early 2015, leading to his suspension from most of Warped Tour 2015 and his dropping from the record label, as well as being unpaid for his first performance since the allegations were brought up in July 2015. Many musicians from the same label and from Warped Tour, such as Buddy Nielsen from Senses Fail, condemned Mcelfresh over Twitter for using fame for predatory behavior, which seems to be distressingly common among smaller acts in Warped tour.

This cost English boy band Blue a US record deal. They were in New York City when 9/11 and witnessed the attack on the World Trade Center. The following month, Blue were being interviewed by British newspaper The Sun and one of the bandmates, Lee Ryan, commented that “This New York thing is being blown out of proportion” and asked “What about whales? They are ignoring animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that’s more important.” His bandmates attempted to stop him from making further comments but were unsuccessful. The fear of public outrage in the US made the band untouchable in the US and almost damaged the band's image in their native UK and had calls for Lee to be removed from the band but these were unsuccessful.

Azealia Banks was removed from the line-up of a London festival after going on a Twitter rant claiming Zayn Malik had plagiarized one of her music videos which included homophobic and racist remarks (and, later, threats of violence, the likes of which were probably the straw that broke the camel's back based on how she threatened to bring firearms into the UK) aimed at the former One Direction bandmate that finally got her suspended from Twitter.

Valentina Lisitsa (who made a name for herself by becoming the fifth-most searched for pianist on Youtube) faced a major firestorm of controversy in 2015 when she found herself effectively blacklisted from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra due to numerous Twitter posts she made insulting Ukrainian people and Ukraine itself (in regards to the Ukranian-Russian conflict). After the TSO originally tried to keep the matter quiet to protect her reputation, Lisitsa publicly called them on their actions, forcing them to come out with the story via a damning seven-page collage of her offending remarks. The TSO then stated that her beliefs were intolerant and not representative of Toronto as a whole. While Lisitsa has still found work with other symphonies, she effectively cannot perform in Toronto again, and her work at this point appears to be Overshadowed by Controversy.

Shabba Ranks torpedoed his career trajectory in 1993 after a disastrous appearance on a U.K. music show. During a feud with fellow dancehall musician Buju Banton, Ranks released a single that advocated for the killing of homosexuals with automatic weapons. Soon after this, Ranks was invited onto the Channel Four show The Word (and just days after winning a Grammy for his album Xtra Naked, to boot). When Ranks attempted to defend his views by claiming that it was "freedom of speech", the crowd audibly booed and host Mark Lamarr responded, "That is absolute crap, and you know it!" Even the co-host and guest Marky Mark (who were sitting besides Ranks on the couch) looked incredibly uncomfortable while listening to him. The resulting fallout from the appearance caused his fanbase to begin splintering, activists campaigning against him and getting him blacklisted from most television shows, and his ensuing singles sliding down the U.S. and U.K. charts. It ended any chance he had of mainstream popularity, and caused him to stop producing music stateside altogether in 1998. While he has remained popular in Jamaica (which still abhors homosexuality and didn't see a problem with his comments), he became persona non grata overseas, and various attempts to mount a comeback since then have been stillborn.

News and Columns

Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News Channel and one of the most influential figures in Republican politics, was forced out of his position several weeks after former Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson sued him for sexual harassment. The suit led to a cascade of similar allegations against Ailes, some going back several decades, in which he allegedly harassed or outright extorted sex from female subordinates. However, it was accusations made by Megyn Kelly, Fox's rising prime-time anchor, that put the final nail in his coffin. Ailes was given the choice of either resigning or being fired from Fox News, leading Ailes to leave the network he had helmed since its inception with $40 million severance pay.

Billy Bush, co-host of the third hour of The Today Show, was caught up in the audiotape scandal which nearly ended Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The tape was an outtake from a 2005 interview between Trump and Bush, then anchor for Access Hollywood, in which Trump infamously boasted about his predilection for sexual assault, bragging that he could "grab [women] by the pussy" and force them into sex because of his fame. Trump talked at length about sleeping with Nancy O'Dell, Bush's Access Hollywood co-anchor, with Bush joking and playing along. NBC initially tried to shield Bush from scrutiny, but public outcry forced the network to suspend and eventually fire him from Today.

Seems to happen with alarming regularity on MSNBC, especially in more recent years:

Phil Donahue's highly-rated prime-time talk show on MSNBC was cancelled in 2003 when he expressed opposition to the impending war in Iraq.

Michael Savage, a far-right shock jock, was let go by MSNBC later that same year when he made disparaging comments about AIDS in response to a crank caller.

Don Imus simulcasted his Imus in the Morning radio show on MSNBC for until he referred to the black players on the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hoes" in 2007. Imus was dropped from MSNBC and CBS Radio in the face of a firestorm, and Imus eventually ended up on Fox Business Network.

Keith Olbermann was indefinitely suspended from hosting his signature show Countdown after he made donations to three Democratic congressional candidates during the 2010 mid-term campaign, purportedly violating an MSNBC policy barring personalities from doing so. Olbermann's fans succeeded in getting the suspension ended early, but his relations with MSNBC execs worsened and ended with his abrupt firing a few months later.

MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir, a former co-host of Nightline, made what were deemed to be "ill-judged comments" regarding Sarah Palin's bizarre comparison of the federal debt to slavery. See here for more information.

Alec Baldwin's late night MSNBC show was canceled after Alec allegedly called a reporter a "cocksucking faggot" off air. He had been suspended by the network for at least two weeks until it was decided to have the plug pulled permanently.

Melissa Harris-Perry was terminated from MSNBC following a dispute with execs over her show's constant pre-emptions and lack of editorial freedoms due to coverage over the 2016 presidential campaigns. She attributed this to the network's refusal to let her analyze the music video for Beyoncé's song "Formation," a protest song examining police violence against African-Americans. This prompted her to refuse to visit the studio the weekend of her eventual firing, and that line-crossing led to network executives to cancel her show and terminate her contract.

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News. On the January 30, 2015 episode of Nightly, Williams claimed he was inside a helicopter that was shot down by enemy fire in Iraq during the U.S. invasion more than a decade ago. However, his story immediately fell under scrutiny by surviving passengers of that helicopter, stating he was in a different helicopter that arrived shortly thereafter. Williams apologized and recanted the story a month later, but that did not stop NBC from launching an investigation on Williams regarding the event. He later voluntary suspended himself from Nightly a day after the investigation was launched, with the network then following by asking him to take six months unpaid leave. Shortly before the suspension ended, NBC announced that he would be demoted to Breaking News anchor at MSNBC, while his longtime colleague and interim host Lester Holt was announced as his permanent replacement.

Chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk was fired by the BBC after penning a column in a tabloid newspaper which contained — to be as objective as possible here — willfully abusive remarks about Arabic people in general, whereupon he decided to stand for Parliament instead.

Kimmo Wilska, an English-language newscaster for the Finnish station Yle, was fired after pretending to be drunk following an alcohol-related story. His bosses were not amused.

During part of the 1970s, the main movie reviewer for a newspaper in Nebraska was running a "teen reviewer" program. Kids/young teens would sign up with the paper to be taken to a movie by the reviewer, and would then write a review of it for publication. Then that reviewer was arrested for pedophilia, and the whole "teen reviewer" operation vanished at light speed.

Piers Morgan was fired as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004 after giving the okay to print a series of photos apparently implicating a British Army unit in Iraqi prisoner abuse. Within days these were proven to be fakes and he left in shame. Interestingly, it seems that most of the public have either forgotten this or chosen to ignore it, as he has since become a relatively successful television personality.

Bizarrely, however, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't despise him.note For example, on an episode of Argumental, Rufus Hound was failing to convince the audience that Jeremy Clarkson was a hero, until he remembered that "this man punched Piers Morgan three times." The audience cheered. One possible explanation is that his first TV job after the incident was on Britain's Got Talent alongside Simon Cowell, where he could easily manipulate audiences to think of him as the nicer judge to Simon's judgmental bastard. (Although of course it's debatable as to whether he took on the role of the "Evil Judge". Either way, the position on the show somehow worked for him.)

Across the pond, Morgan's 9:00 p.m. ET weekday talk show on CNN had a controversy over misgendering transgender activist Janet Mock, followed by several disparaging tweets about her from Morgan. The show was soon cancelled and replaced with documentaries.

Andy Gray and Richard Keys were fired by Sky Sports after making sexist comments about a female official's performance in a Premier League game, whilst cameras were rolling but they were off-air, only for the footage to be leaked, with more footage showing it wasn't a one time thing. They were quickly picked up by talkSPORT to host a radio show and eventually returned to television with Bein Sports (formerly Al Jazeera Sport), but the damage was done.

Bob Greene, a popular syndicated columnist based at the Chicago Tribune known in part for his sentimental columns about family, lost his column and his job at the Tribune after he admitted to an extramarital affair with a high school student.

Former football manager Ron Atkinson was sacked from a job as a TV pundit after making unfortunate remarks about a black player in an otherwise lacklustre football game. It was remarked that had he just confined himself to talking about a "lazy bastard" on the field and left out the descriptive word "black", he could have been describing any of the twenty-two players out there.

The News of the World phone-hacking scandals didn't just end careers, it ended the role of an entire publication, and additionally hobbled the print media industry in the UK. It also demolished any perception of Rupert Murdoch's political clout, as evidenced not as much by his stoop-shouldered humility before a Parliamentary ethics hearing as that ranking officials who deferred to him before began to publicly diss and dismiss him.

Petra László, a reporter for the Right-leaning Hungarian news station N1TV, was fired from her job after she appeared in a video purposely tripping a fleeing refugee and another in which she kicks a couple of refugees (one of them a young girl), during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis in Europe.

Dan Rather stepped down from the CBS Evening News after documents for a 2004 story on 60 Minutes about George W. Bush's National Guard service turned out to be forged. His last broadcast for the Evening News was in 2005 and a year later CBS decided not to renew his contract.

Fabrication and plagiarism are considered to be major breaches of journalism ethics, and are often career killers for journalists who are caught committing them. Among the best known cases:

Stephen Glass, a star reporter at The New Republic whose work, notably the feature "Hack Heaven" about a 15-year old jetsetting hacker - was discovered be largely fabrication in 1998. His story was made into the film Shattered Glass.

Janet Cooke of The Washington Post, who became the only journalist to ever return a Pulitizer Prize in 1981 after it was discovered that her story "Jimmy's World", about an 8-year heroin addict, was a fabrication.

Michael Finkel of The New York Times, was fired in 2002 for creating a composite character in a story on modern-day African slavery. Interestingly, shortly after he was fired, he came into contact with convicted murderer Christian Longo, who had used Finkel's name as an alias while on the run - ironically, because he was certain Finkel would tell his "real story." The result?: Finkel turned both his dismissal from the Times and his interviews with Longo into the non-fiction book True Story, which was later made into a film. Following the success of the book, he became one of only a few journalists to fired for fabrication to successfully rebuild their career, winning the Edgar Award for true crime writing.

Johan Hari, the youngest Orwell Prize winner, had to return the prize and leave the Independent newspaper when it was discovered that he had a habit of replacing what people had said to him in interviews with unattributed quotes from other sources, and plagiarised much of one article from Der Speigel. He wasn't helped by the fact that one "David R from meth productions", who had made damaging edits to Hari's critics' Wikipedia articles, and glowing edits to Hari's own, turned out to be Hari himself.

Former sumo champion Koji Kitao was expelled from New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1990 for verbally attacking Riki Choshu (a famous backstage troublemaker himself) with an ethnic slurnote Choshu is Korean. Not only that, he was later released from Super World of Sports for crashing a match against John Tenta and screaming to the crowd that wrestling was fake.

Sherri Martel's back problems led to her getting hooked on oxycodone, or "hillbilly heroin". In 1993, Vince McMahon summoned her to his office and informed her that her services were no longer required. WCW was a bit more accommodating, even allowing Sherri to take time off for detox, but in 2000 she relapsed and was released for good. She and Chris Benoit died with 2 weeks of each other in June of 2007. Both wrestlers had a history of being over-prescribed pain meds (by the same sports physician, no less).

Paul Roma was told to make the young upstart Alex Wright look good in their match at WCW SuperBrawl V, February 19, 1995, en route to losing the match. Roma instead no-sold Wright's offense, mocked his goofy dance to a Face reaction despite the fact that Roma was the Heel here, and actually kicked out of Wright's schoolboy rollup pin attempt, though the ref counted to three anyway. WCW fired Roma after this and he has only ever been seen in small independents ever since.

Bull Nakano was released from the WWF in 1995 for being caught in possession of cocaine. She later went on to wrestle in WCW for a few years before the program shut down.

CMLL stripped Reina Jubuki of its World Women's title in 1995 after she used their willingness to let her compete elsewhere without her mask to fill two slots in the WCW Monday Nitro Womens title tournament with the Jubuki gimmick and as Akira Hokuto. Worse for Hokuto, WCW didn't have nearly as much interest as CMLL in actually doing anything with its women's title. (an alternate view is that CMLL was more displeased with WCW's AAA deal than anything Hokuto did herself)

La Tigresa's five year reign as WWC women's champion ended in 1998 after she was arrested for trying to smuggle heroin into the Puerto Rico State Penitentiary.

Eddie Guerrero was arrested for DUI in 2001 and released by WWE; five months passed before he returned to WWE. Having dealt with many of his personal demons in that period, Eddie returned to enjoy the greatest success of his career (up until his unexpected death in 2005).

A contestant on the third season of WWE Tough Enough in 2002, Lisa, was cut from the competition after having a psychotic breakdown, breaking into the hidden camera room and climbing onto the roof of the house. She was hospitalised but fled when her parents came to check her out, and she managed to have an entire wing of a local airport shut down while people tried to find her. Her fellow contestants (and by extension the audience) were told she left because she decided wrestling wasn't the right career for her.

Teddy Hart, who became the youngest man to ever get a WWE developmental deal in 1998, has been fired and blacklisted from several companies due to his prima donna attitude that makes him a pain to work with backstage, and the fact that he's such an Attention Whore and Spot Monkey that he'll even refuse to go through with previously agreed finishes or the script (where applicable) and show off with insane high-flying moves that put himself and his opponents in danger. That developmental deal lasted four years until he was released from WWE for "attitude problems" in 2002 (though he got two more WWE developmental deals in 2005 and 2006). He was released from Ring of Honorand TNA in 2004 after Sabu had to separate him and CM Punk (he'd make a one night ROH return in 2009 and be offered a TNA return in 2016). He pisses off so many people that some companies (such as AAA in 2010, before he returned as part of los Perros Del Mal at Triplemania XX) admit to firing him out of fear that some coworkers will attempt to murder him.

Jeff Hardy, Mr. Fanservice and an expert at working the crowd (though with increasingly poor workmanship in his actual wrestling), originally lost his WWE job in 2003 due to his drug abuse; he was hired a year later by TNA (a company with a notably less stringent drug-testing policy). He then lost his job with TNA due to no-showing a number of events and then was rehired by WWE a few months later. He blitzed through several Wellness policy strikes before leaving to "heal from injuries", not coincidentally around the time he was arrested for steroid and prescription pill trafficking. TNA rehired him in January 2010, and he held it together for about 9 months before falling off the wagon, eventually culminating at the 2011 Victory Road PPV where Jeff went out to wrestle Sting while stoned out of his gourd. Hardy had to make a public apology when he returned and TNA told him that it would be his last chance.

Ring of Honor has lost both of its founders to such events. Gabe 'Jimmy Bowers' Sapolsky for booking an exceptionally tasteless and widely mocked angle, was simply him lapsing at his job but Rob 'Fun Athletic Guy' Feinstein was caught trying to get an under aged boy to consent in 2004. Among wrestlers not named Teddy Hart, Adam Pearce was effectively banned from the promotion for telling a merchandise agent picked up by consequence of the Sinclair purchase that he wanted to beat the piss out of him.

A family member of Torrie Wilson's fell ill suddenly and she had to immediately go home to see them. Through sheer bad luck she was unable to get a hold of anyone in the office to notify them. She ended up missing a Raw and a PPV that she was advertised for and was fired by the company. However she was rehired back a few days later. She theorised that it would have been a PR disaster for them if word got out.

Juventud Guerrera was fired from WWE apparently because dancing on a car while high in 2006 was bad for their publicity and by AAA in 2009 after getting in a locker room fight when he found someone had taken a dump in his bagnote Guerrera insists it was Konnan while Konnan said it was X Pac, but thought it was funny either way. AAA did take him back though, because it was easy to understand why he did so.

Kurt Angle was released from the WWE in 2006 allegedly for his refusal to go into rehab.

While he wasn't fired for it, getting busted for marijuana possession in 2007 led then "ECW" and WWE Champion Rob Van Dam to drop both of those titles in two days (one on Raw, the other on ECW the next night) before serving out his sixty-day Wellness suspension.

Dr. Wagner Jr and L.A. Park were fired by CMLL after their 75th Anniversary show in September of 2008 for going overboard during their match, though Wagner claimed it was due him criticizing CMLL in the press and lead a 200 man protest march for everyone who felt mistreated by their bosses. Seven years later, both were advertised for CMLL's 82nd Anniversary show in September of 2015 and were an important part of the build up to it but L.A. Park ended up being removed from the card and fired after using what CMLL deemed excessive profanity during a promo which consisted of him insulting the arena Mexico fans.

Serena, of CM Punk's Straight Edge Society, was let go in 2010 for excessive partying and drinking in public. So not only was she becoming a detriment to WWE's image and acting unprofessionally, she was contradicting the character she played. However, take in mind that weeks earlier, Serena helped save CM Punk from Kane's wrath by the showing the only thing that would help clear his name: footage of her relapse. It just was legitimate this time.

7 ft Isis the Amazon was advertised for the third season of NXT as "Aloisa" in 2010 but was cut from the show after it was found that she had done erotic fetish photos online. She wasn't released however until she actively started complaining about it to any interviewer who asked.

In August 2010, Taryn Terrell (a.k.a. former WWE Diva Tiffany) was fired after getting arrested for assaulting her husband Drew McIntyre.

While not fired per se, the name Nick Gage, who was highly decorated in CZW, would become fodder for angles after fans of the promotion identified him as an attempted bank robber to the authorities in December of 2010, leading to his arrest. Drew Gulak would name him and several others who left CZW for various legal related problems during his "Campaign For A Better Combat Zone".

Lince Dorado would be fired from Chikara in 2011, either for appearing in public without his mask or for no showing one too many events, former story being more popular.

Sometimes wrestler, sometimes booker NOSAWA Rongai was fired from All Japan Pro Wrestling in 2011 after attacking a taxi driver, stealing the car and driving it without license, all while thoroughly drunk. This hit to his reputation no doubt "helped" the latter Sugi incident.

Famed Japanese high-flyer Takuya Sugi had his career terminated in 2012 after taking part in the NOSAWA drug scandal, in which he planted marijuana in NOSAWA Rongai's baggages to get him in jail in exchange for a full time contract in AAA. This is a particularly ugly example, not only due to the nasty nature of the move, but also because Sugi himself was the one who revealed his own role in the incident out of guilt, and because the man who offered him the contract, promoter Masahiro Hayashi, was seemingly unpunished for his part. Sugi would return to the ring, but it wouldn't be until three years later that he didn't use very covert identities while doing so, his most prestigious roles being blink and miss it spots on the cards of Pro Wrestling NOAH and Wrestle-1.

AW, the manager for the Prime Time Players was released after he made an off color reference to the Kobe Bryant rape case (which was aired live on Raw no less) in 2012, although he had made several other statements in the weeks leading up to it (and The Big Show had referenced the same incident on Smackdown, a pre taped show that could easily remove them).

Kelly Kelly invoked this in late 2012. She had wanted to take a hiatus from the company for a while and disappeared for a few months, before making a couple of reappearances. However she wished to leave altogether due to nagging injuries and the office refused to release her. She responded by taking part in a very risque photo shoot for a calendar. After refusing to take some of the photos down from her website, the office released her.

Ivelisse Vélez was abruptly let go in 2012 and the reason was said to be "attitude problems" - and a rumour went around that it was because she had been acting very arrogant and believing she would be on the main roster soon. She denied these claims and later said that she had spoken up against trainer Bill DeMott and his abuse of trainees. She claimed that she was released to be made an example of.

Emma was released by WWE in 2014 after she was arrested for shoplifting (though, in reality, it was less deliberate shoplifting and more having difficulties with a self-checkout machine.) As it happens, this is a literal example — as is the case in most shoplifting arrests, she was charged with misdemeanor petty theft. Almost immediately, it became clear that fans and wrestling sites alike already had their claws out ready to defend her, seeing as she was fired for what was clearly an honest mistake while other superstars have done far worse and are still with the company. The notoriously PR-conscious WWE, seeing an oncoming wave of bad publicity and likely wanting to keep their sole Australian on the roster for an upcoming tour of the country, rehired her roughly an hour after her release was announced, making this one of the shortest-lived instances of this trope.

It is rumored that Koji Kanemoto was blacklisted from WRESTLE-1 in 2014 for getting in a fight with a fan after a event.

Yoshiko was suspended indefinitely from Wonder Ring STARDOM for going into business for herself and attacking Act Yasukawa for real during their Feb. 22, 2015 match, beating Yasukawa to a bloody pulp, breaking her nose, cheek and orbital bone around her surgically repaired eye.

In July 2015, Hulk Hogan was released from the WWE after a tape featuring him making racist comments was leaked to the public. Even more so, it was a sex tape that he was suing to try to prevent it from being released. The tape itself would eventually become this for Gawker Media, as Hogan subsequently sued the company into bankruptcy, and Univision, upon purchase of its assets, stated that all of its divisions except Gawker would continue to operate.

On August 31, 2015, the girlfriend of then-WWE Champion Seth Rollins, NXT Diva Zahra Schreiber, got released for "inappropriate and offensive remarks". Back in 2012, she posted pro-Nazi artwork onto her Twitter account and somebody dug it out. She tried to defend it by stating swastikas stood for "peace", but her explanation fell apart when one of the photos was a pony à la My Little Pony with a swastika armband and a handlebar mustache, clearly meant as a send-off to Hitler. Granted, she was probably still on thin ice after the nude photo scandal earlier that year when somebody posted a nude photo of her to his social media accounts (the contents of which are automatically published by WWE.com) and then Rollins' then-fiancee Leighla Schultz posted a nude photo of him to her twitter account. This was just it for them, seeing as she doesn't have clout or leverage that Seth does and this wasn't too far off Hogan's firing for similar reasons.

Masada of the Carnage Crew was offered a deal with TNA in April of 2016 which ended up not working out when he was arrested for stumbling around drunken in public (he slipped and hit his head), also getting company founder Jeff Jarrett in trouble by association (he was in the process of finalizing the deal with him) and Teddy Hart arrested (for having paid for Masada's alcohol, roughly 700 USD spent).

Titus O'Neil almost faced this as he was almost fired after he had playfully grabbed Vince during the Daniel Bryan's retirement episode. Instead he was suspended for 60 days that was originally 90.

Subverted with NXT Diva Aliyah. Old tweets using racial slurs were uncovered on her account. However WWE issued a statement that the tweets had been made by someone else using her account - not to mention being made when she was only seventeen - and she remained under contract.

Matt Sydal was replaced by David Finaly Jr in as a third of the NEVER Openweight Six man Tag Team Champions after he was charged with possession of liquid marijuana and electronic cigarettes while entering Japan on September 29th of 2016.

Politics

In general, there is a long list of politicians who have been removed from office after a scandal destroys their reputation. Sex scandals and corruption tend to be the most common.

After it was revealed that portions of Melania Trump's speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention were plagiarized from Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic convention speech, Melania virtually disappeared from the campaign trail for her husband, Donald Trump's presidency. The Donald miraculously managed to survive numerous actions that would ruin any other politician's career due to The Tyson Zone effect, eventually winning the election.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office on September 23, 2016, for encouraging violation of the Supreme Court's 2015 decision on gay marriage. Combined with his age at the time, it effectively translates to an impeachment conviction and disqualification from office.

The conviction of two aides to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for participating in the Bridgegate scandalnote wherein two lanes of traffic were closed down on the George Washington Bridge, causing massive traffic congestion, as retaliation against the mayor of Fort Lee for not supporting Christiebasically spelled the end of Christie's political career, to the point where Donald Trump, himself not known for being a saint, demoted him from his position on his transition team.

Radio

After Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left offensive messages on the answer phone of Andrew "Manuel" Sachs as part of a show on BBC Radio 2, the BBC faced so much pressure to sack them that Brand resigned from the show on his own. Ross later terminated his contract with the BBC amid speculation that he was about to have it ended for him, due to the Sachs incident and other controversies including complaints about a homophobic joke on his radio show.

As far as Brand is concerned though, all public outcries about his behaviour have totally backfired. The complaints from the incident made up almost all the material for his next stand-up tour (which was eventually released on DVD too) and he now had enough to work with to write a second autobiography. He also became a household name in the US principally because of his controversial behaviour hosting the MTV Music Awards Ceremony (where he made fun of The Jonas Brothers' purity rings and called then-president George W. Bush a "retarded cowboy fella" among other things). Brand thrives on controversy like some sort of celebrity vampire.

Ross was also pulled from his British Comedy Awards hosting gig for that year (although he has returned since then). In a mild case of irony, his replacement was Angus Deayton.

From 1941-1948 C. E. M. Joad was a popular contributor to The BBCRadio show The Brains Trust, until he was arrested for the heinous crime of fare-dodging on the railway. The scandal ruined his career and may have been a contributory factor in his death five years later.

Australian Radio host Kyle Sandilands lost his job as a judge on Australian Idol after a lie detector stunt on his radio show revealed that a teenage girl got raped, and he responded by asking her if she had any other sexual experience. This revelation was not dumped, and hence was broadcast to Sydney listeners. Media Watch (ABC) Transcript

talkSPORT sacked its talk show host, Jon Gaunt, after an interview with a councillor. Gaunt wasn't keen on plans to exclude smokers from being foster parents and described the councillor as a 'Nazi' and an 'ignorant pig'. The interview was live.

St. Louis talk radio host Dave Lenihan made a slip of the tongue when discussing the rumor that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was interested in the position of NFL commissioner. Meaning to say that she would be a "huge boon" to the League, he slipped and instead called her a "huge coon." He immediately apologized profusely for the racial epithet, but when his show returned from commercial, it was the station's general manager speaking, revealing that Lenihan had been fired during the break.

The hosts of Australia's Hot 30 on 2Day FM, Mel Grieg and Mike Christian thought it was funny to imitate the Queen and Prince Charles and try to prank the London hospital where Kate Middleton was staying to recover from vicious morning sickness after her pregnancy was announced. When the nurse who unknowing transferred the call to allow the prank to go forward received unwanted attention, she committed suicide and after a tone-deaf reaction where the station continued to promote the prank even after the nurse's death, public reaction and the anger of advertisers who immediately pulled their advertising from the station forced their hand. Both hosts were suspended, the station went automated and hostless for a couple weeks, and after a couple months, Mel had not returned, while Mike had gone from being on one of the most high-profile shows in Australia to going back to his old job in Melbourne. Security procedures involving phone calls to hospitals went up, and radio show prank calls in Australia were made verboten.

Steve Shapiro, Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino were the hosts of a morning show on WQXI in Atlanta, GA. After former NFL star Steve Gleason wrote an article on living with ALS, they decided a skit making fun of Gleason and "joking" about his life expectancy would be perfect for their show (Atlanta's Falcons are bitter division rivals with the New Orleans Saints, the team Gleason played with). They were fired by the end of the day, and quickly lost their weekly television show on the local CBS affiliate.

Don Imus was fired from his sports radio show in 2007 after referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos".

Opie & Anthony did this twice. They were fired from a Boston radio station after announcing the mayor had been killed in a car accident as an April Fool's Day Prank. Four years later they were fired from their nationally syndicated show when, during a contest called "Sex For Sam", a contest where contestants had sex in public places, a couple decided to have sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral and were arrested.

In 2014 Anthony was fired from Sirius XM for a series of racially charged tweets involving an altercation with a black woman. The show continued with Opie and regular second banana Jim Norton.

Michael Savage had his own show on MSNBC for almost four months before he was dismissed from NBC News after controversial remarks regarding people with AIDS in response to a crank caller making fun of Savage's teeth.

Jian Ghomeshi, host of the popular Canadian radio show Q, was fired from CBC Radio after he was accused of beating and raping several women. Ghomeshi initially claimed the acts were consensual BDSM and that he was being fired due to kink-phobia, then tried to sue the CBC, then quietly settled when it became clear that few people believed him. He then turned himself in to Toronto Police and was criminally prosecuted. As Q had just gotten a weekly TV show syndicated throughout the United States a couple weeks before with past Ghomeshi interviews, it likely became a Show Ending Misdemeanor as the syndicator quickly ended the 'this guy does great interviews, let's show the video' format with his interviews for a much less-watched 'week in review' version with the current staff that makes it just another late-night syndicated music show to those unfamiliar with Q. Even though Ghomeshi would be cleared of the charges two years later with overwhelming evidence that most of the key witnesses testimony was significantly inaccurate and/or intentionally dishonest, the publicity fallout from the scandal, combined with massive uproar of his acquittal, mean it's safe to say he won't be coming back to the public square anytime soon.

On January 17, 2005, just weeks after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, radio personality Miss Jones of WQHT-FM (Hot 97) New York introduced, and producer Rick Del Gado sung, on air, a parody of "We Are the World," titled "USA for Indonesia," as an attempted Take That to former Hot 97 hosts Star & Buc Wild leaving for rival station WWPR-FM to boost ratings. The song was sung in a deliberately tasteless fashion, riddled with ethnic slurs derogatory toward Asian-Americans, mocked the victims of the devastating tsunami and generally made Howard Stern look like a gentleman. The public outrage was almost immediate, resulting in Del Gado getting fired from the station, while Miss Jones and several other DJs were suspended.

It probably didn't help that another DJ on the station, Miss Info, had objected to playing the song when Jones began to introduce it, and she walked out of the station in protest whilst being insulted by her fellow DJs. Todd Lynn, one of those DJs, took it to a whole new level by bragging about "shooting Asians." Lynn was fired for that remark along with Del Gado.

Radio DJ Danny Baker similarly lost a job as a sports pundit on BBC Radio 5 for an ill-judged emotional outburst on air after his drinking buddy Paul Gascoigne was dropped from the England side for a crucial set of fixtures. Baker's abusive rant against the manager and selectors was not appreciated by the BBC, who did to him what the England manager had done to Gascoigne - dropped an unpredictible, heavy-drinking, and unreliable talent as a liability.

Playboy model Dani Mathers formerly had a segment on the radio show Heidi and Frank called Put Your Man Where Your Mouth Is before it was ended in the middle of July 2016 after Mathers, on her Snapchat account, body shamed a random woman in an LA Fitness shower room without the woman's knowledge. She is also banned for life from all LA Fitness facilities.

Sports

Professional golfer Tiger Woods lost a number of endorsement deals after details of his multiple sexual affairs began coming out. Woods' brand was that of a squeaky clean, upstanding family man, and a seemingly endless conga line of mistresses coming out of the woodwork destroyed that image. His only major sponsor that stuck with him was Nike, who released a famously incomprehensible advertisement in support of him.

Similarly, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps lost many of his endorsement deals after pictures of him using a marijuana bong at a party were released.

After basketball star Kobe Bryant was accused of sexual assault, he lost most of his endorsement deals, including his longtime stand as the spokesman for Nutella hazelnut spread. It's possible that his defense against the accusation - that he was just cheating on his wife - also played a part in it.

Pro hockey player Marty McSorley attacked Donald Brashear with his stick, resulting in a trial and conviction for assault with a weapon. The National Hockey League initially suspended him for the remainder of the season (23 games), but lengthened it to a year after the jury found him guilty. It effectively ended his career.

Sean Avery, then on the Dallas Stars, was suspended indefinitely (and immediately) by the NHL after he made a rather crude reference to his ex-girlfriend Elisha Cuthbert dating other hockey players. The league suspended him six games and forced him to seek anger management counselling, but the Stars effectively kicked him off the team by placing him on waivers.

In November 2011, longtime Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno's illustrious career came to an abrupt end a week after a 10-7 win over Illinois, putting him at a record 409 wins. Paterno was fired by the Penn State Board of Trustees after Jerry Sandusky (Paterno's former defensive head coach) was indicted for child molestation after rejecting his resignation offer. Although he reported it to his boss and the head of campus police, many people, even Paterno himself, wished that he would have done more.

Related to this, Mike McQueary, the assistant who allegedly saw it occur, waited a day to tell Paterno what happened. When this came out, there were death threats from an Angry Mob. He was soon dismissed from the coaching staff for not reporting it to authorities and possibly his own safety.

Athletic director Tim Curley, Paterno's boss, was a part of the cover up that also involved the head of campus police Gary Schultz and university president Graham Spanier. All three were let go, and are now also facing charges.

Australian swimming gold medalist Dawn Fraser was given a ten-year suspension, effectively ending her career, after stealing an Olympic flag during the Tokyo 1964 Olympics. In the documentary Sporting Nation, she commented that if she had been a man, nothing would have come of the incident. Fraser's story had a happy ending: She got to keep the flag she stole and was even awarded the prestigious Australian of the Year award for 1964 despite the incident. Her suspension was lifted in time for the 1968 Olympics, but her reinstatement came so late that she had no time to prepare and did not participate.

Chad Johnson, also known as Chad Ochocinco, was released by the Miami Dolphins after he was arrested following a fight with his Basketball Wives-starring wife, which also ended their VH-1 series before it would have come to air a month later, and their marriage.

Cyclist Lance Armstrong, despite being the founder of the Cancer-Fighting group "Live Strong", removed himself from the organization after allegations of doping arose and wouldn't go away. He stated that he was leaving it to avoid tarnishing the group's image. And then, once the doping allegations turned out to be true, he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and disqualified from participating in any future events.

Three-time Olympic runner Suzy Favor Hamilton admitted on Twitter in 2012 that she had moonlighted as an escort. Disney immediately uninvited her from their running competition.

While preparing for the 1986 FIFA World Cup, Brazilian striker Renato Gaúcho escaped from training camp in order to party. He was promptly cut from the squad.

During the Australian Cricket team's 2013 tour of India, four members of the squad (including vice-captain Shane Watson) were dropped from the side for the third test for failing to do the "homework" they had been assigned. Possibly justified as the team had lost the first two tests and been criticised for a general lack of discipline, and this was seen as the "last straw".

Not so career-ending for the players, who as of September 2013 are back on the team roster. It is however cited as part of the reason the coach was fired by the Australian Cricket Board.

In November 2009, New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in a New York nightclub. In New York, concealed carry without a license is a felony, and he accepted a 2-year prison term for criminal possession and reckless endangerment. The Giants suspended and subsequently cut him, but not before a fight with the NFL Players' association over a $1 million bonus the team owed him (an arbitrator ruled that he would be paid in full).

In June 2012, Arizona Diamondbacks broadcaster Daron Sutton was fired for wearing a suit, instead of a polo shirt with a team logo on it. His partner Mark Grace ended up being fired later in the season, but for DUI.

Sports journalist Rob Parker was relieved of his duties on ESPN2's First Take after controversial comments in which he alleged Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was a "cornball brother" and following it with a No True Scotsman invocation. Three years before, Parker resigned from his previous job at The Detroit News over a question he asked in a press conference to Detroit Lion coach Rod Marinelli if his daughter should not have married defensive coordinator Joe Barry.

On June 27, 2013, less than two hours after the arrest of New England Patriots tight Aaron Hernandez on suspicion of murdering former semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd, the Patriots cut their relations to the former star, and made moves to recoup the remainder of his contract salary. Soon after, the Patriots also organized a limited pro shop exchange where any Hernandez jersey could be exchanged for another player's replica shirt for no charge, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame removed a popular picture of him from a display.

Accomplished Cincinnati fielder and manager Pete Rose was banned from baseball in 1992 after getting caught betting on baseball, including his own team. He hasn't been eligible for ballots in the Hall of Fame either.

NFL running back Ray Rice was cut from the Baltimore Ravens and suspended indefinitely after a video of him striking his then-girlfriend (to the point of unconsciousness) in an elevator surfaced. Earlier, Rice had been suspended for 2 games after another video of the same incident merely hinted at him having struck her, which, in itself, brought heavy criticism to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for the virtual slap on the wrist. However, he got the suspension overturned in court, making him eligible to play again, though it remains to be seen if any team will want to take him after this controversy.

Ah, yes, professional NFL quarterback Michael Vick. Might want to make some hot wings because this will take a while. Vick gained prominence for being one of the most strenuous quarterbacks for the Atlanta Falcons NFL team, serving with the team for five NFL seasons. He even played in three Pro Bowls with the team during his tenure as a Falcon. In 2006, he became the first NFL quarterback to ever run over 1,000 yards in a single season. Despite the Falcons missing the playoffs during that season, everyone viewed Vick as a positive role model and was said to be the one that would save the troubled team. Just after the season ended the following year, however, everything changed when everyone was shocked to discover Vick had run a dog fighting business at his property in Virginia that ran for over five years, just after he joined the Falcons. Several months later, Vick along with several other men were arrested and charged with numerous counts of animal cruelty. The Falcons immediately suspended Vick following his arrest. Vick pleaded guilty to all charges just a month after his arrest. Vick was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison as a result. The financial impact from numerous lawsuits from various animal rights groups caused Vick to file for bankruptcy in July 2008, and the Falcons released Vick from the team months later. After his release from prison, Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles and later the New York Jets. While he continues to play today, he has never achieved the same popularity he had a decade before, thanks to being overshadowed by his dark past.

Figure skater Tonya Harding, who made history as the first American woman to land a triple axel, was stripped of her 1994 US Championship title and banned for life from ever participating—whether as a skater or even as a coach—in any event sanctioned by the US Figure Skating Association after pleading guilty to conspiring to hinder the prosecution of those involved in the attack on her skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. 20 years later and her name is still basically a synonym for someone wanting to ruthlessly take out the competition.

Track and field athlete Marion Jones was stripped of all five of the medals she won at the 2000 Summer Olympics (3 gold, 2 bronze), as well as a fifth place finish at the 2004 Games and banned from even attending the 2008 Games after admitting to using performance-enhancing drugs.

Sheffield United striker and Welsh footballer Ched Evans was convicted of raping a nineteen-year-old in April 2012, and was imprisoned for two and a half years (after initially being sentenced to five) before being released. When it was suggested that he might be allowed to return to Sheffield United, there was an immediate and massive backlash: over 150,000 people signed an online petition against his doing so, several sponsors ended their ties with the clubnote specifically, musicians Dave Berry and Paul Heaton and television presenter Charlie Webster and several others threatened to join suitnote athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, DBL Logistics (who sponsor the back of the club's shirts) and John Holland Sales (who sponsor the front), forcing Sheffield to turn Evans away. Any subsequent efforts to find a club all fell through... until April 2016, when his conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered. That June he signed for Chesterfield and hit the ground running, with two goals and two assists in his first two games, and after being found not guilty at his retrial, his career is set to continue for the foreseeable future. However, he remains a highly controversial figure who is booed whenever he plays.

CBS Sports' NBA commentator Greg Anthony was suspended after he was arrested on charges of soliciting a prostitute. His contract with Turner Sports was also simultaneously suspended.

In a similar yet harsher vein, NFL Network would immediately terminate analyst Warren Sapp after he too was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, as well as assault.

When Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was taped by his girlfriend demanding that she not "bring black people to his games" and generally spouting racial epithets towards black people in general and Magic Johnson in particular, the NBA quickly moved to strip Sterling of his share of the Clippers after his players and coaches hinted that they might forfeit playoff games.

A Japanese volleyball player got fired after stealing money from a wallet. The amount involved was roughly worth $1200. It remains unclear why he thought this was a good idea.

Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty, despite steering the club to promotion, two title challenges and two FA Cup finals (the second of which ended in victory), was fired in mid-19977 after having an affair with the wife of the club's physiotherapist. Since UK law heavily restricts the scenarios in which an employee can be fired for their behaviour outside the workplace, the club made an obviously trumped-up accusation that Docherty had been engaging in ticket scalping, which he didn't bother to contest (even though the club were technically guilty of slander and wrongful dismissal).

Boxer Manny Pacquiao was terminated from his deal with Nike after making extremely homophobic remarks when he was asked about allowing same-sex marriage in the Philippines if he was elected as senator. Averted after he won his final match, as he still remains popular in his home country, which is predominantly Christian, and later won a seat in the senatorial state in the 2016 elections.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kurt Busch almost became this trope after domestic violence allegations were made against him by his ex-girlfriend, who alleged that he struck her during the fall 2014 Dover race weekend. NASCAR suspended him while the charges were investigated, as a way of demonstrating their proactive stance on the issue. He was reinstated to the sport four races into the season, at Phoenix, once it was made clear that there was no evidence to bring charges against him.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team Michael Waltrip Racing was a moderately successful team, even getting a couple of wins with Clint Bowyer in 2012, plus Martin Truex Jr. and Brian Vickers in 2013. And then there was the Spingate scandal, when the team was caught attempting to manipulate the finish of the fall 2013 Richmond race in an attempt to get Truex into the Chase (see the NASCAR page for more). After a review of the incident, NASCAR threw the book at MWR: penalizing all three teams 50 driver and owner points, assessed to their pre-seeding totals. This knocked Truex out of the Chase and gave his spot to Ryan Newman. All three teams were also given a $300,000 fine, their crew chiefs were put on probation for the remainder of the year, and MWR general manager of competition Ty Norris was indefinitely suspended. The next week, Truex's sponsor NAPA Auto Parts decided to terminate their partnership with the team effective at the end of 2013, with two years left on their most recent agreement with the teamnote NAPA went down to the Xfinity Series to sponsor Chase Elliott, funding him through his rookie/championship 2014 season, and continuing to sponsor him when he was pushed up to the Cup Series to replace the retiring Jeff Gordon. This ultimately led to the #56 becoming a part-time team, as well as the dismissal of Truex from MWR. While Truex would go on to have greater success with Furniture Row Racing, MWR never regained the prestige it had pre-Spingate, and the loss of funding caused by NAPA's withdrawal led to the team folding at the end of the 2015 season.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver A.J. Allmendinger, while driving for Team Penske, was suspended in July 2012 after he tested positive for amphetamines during a drug test just before the Coke Zero 400. On August 1st, he was released from his contract at Penske. This did not end his career, as Allmendinger chose to participate in NASCAR's Road to Recovery program, and at its completion was reinstated by NASCAR. He then spent 2013 as a part-time driver with Phoenix Racing and JTG Daugherty Racing in the Sprint Cup Series, a road course ringer for Roger Penske in the Xfinity Series (winning both events he participated in there), and competed in the Indianapolis 500. In 2014, he became a full-time Cup driver for JTG Daugherty, even picking up his first career Cup win at Watkins Glen.

After Formula One driver Nelson Piquet Jr. was sacked by Renault midway through the 2009 season, he decided to pull a Taking You with Me and revealed that at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix he had, under orders from team principal Flavio Briatore and engineer Pat Symonds, deliberately crashed into a wall, bringing out the safety car and ultimately allowing team-mate Fernando Alonso to win the race. With the sport still recovering from the McLaren spying scandal, the FIA came down on Renault like a ton of bricks: Briatore was banned from F1 for life, Symonds was banned for five years, and Renault themselves were given a suspended disqualification, lost two of their main sponsors, and sold their team to Lotus after the 2010 season (then bought it back for 2016). Briatore and Symonds' bans were later overturned, and while the latter returned to the sport with Williams in 2013, Briatore has no intention of ever returning. As for Piquet himself, while the scandal killed his chances of ever racing in F1 again, he has since made a name for himself in NASCAR and rallycross before winning the inaugural Formula E championship in 2014-15.

In August 1991, Belgian F1 driver Bertrand Gachot was regarded as a promising rising star: he had won that year's 24 Hours of Le Mans, and had just set the fastest lap of the race at the Hungarian GP despite driving for the unfancied Jordan team. Shortly after that race, he was arrested and jailed for two months for spraying tear gas in a taxi driver's face, and his seat was taken by a certain MichaelSchumacher. This didn't end Gachot's career outright, but it did relegate him to driving for the horrifically uncompetitive Larrousse and Pacific teams, and after the latter folded at the end of the 1995 season, Gachot gave up.

At the 2006 San Marino Grand Prix, Super Aguri's Yuji Ide crashed into Midland's Christijan Albers, pitching Albers' car into a violent series of barrel rolls. Albers was unhurt, but the FIA had run out of patience with the reckless, inept Ide, and after initially giving him a warning, they eventually just yanked his Super License, effectively blacklisting him from the sport.

Early in 1999, England national football coach Glenn Hoddle stated his belief in a newspaper interview that disabled people were paying for sins committed in a past life, something which outraged disability campaigners. Under most circumstances, this would likely have resulted in the Football Association forcing Hoddle to make a grovelling apology and a big donation to charity. However, when combined with the ridicule Hoddle had already received for employing a faith healer as part of his coaching set-up, poor results in the first few Euro 2000 qualifiers, and known disputes between him and the players (most notably team captain Alan Shearer), it evidently caused the FA to run out of patience with Hoddle, and they duly fired him.

In 2016, Sam Allardyce was fired as manager of the England team after just 67 days, after he was caught by an undercover reporter giving advice on how to bypass transfer rules imposed by the English and French FAs as well as FIFA for a profitnote The English Football Association doesn't allow for third-party ownership of players' contracts, which is what Allardyce was trying to circumvent through effectively being the boss to the players' agents, getting money based on a percentage of what both the club and the player earns for the transfer, easily in the £100,000 range.. It also didn't help that he insulted Roy Hodgson, his predecessor, during the same interview.

The perpetrator of the Stanford sexual assault case, Brock Turner, had both his academic career cut short due to being expelled from Stanford University as well as his sports career as a swimmer cut short due to being banned for life by USA Swimming which ended his aspirations of swimming for the USA Olympic team. Considering that the light sentencing was because of his swimming career, many are seeing this as Laser-Guided Karma.

The pro tennis player Agnieszka Radwańska was a member and spokesperson for the Polish Catholic campaign "Nie wstydzę się Jezusa!" ("I'm not ashamed of Jesus!"). In 2013, she was kicked out after she posed nude for ESPN magazine.

US Olympian swimmer Ryan Lochte generated international controversy when he falsely claimed that he and three other American swimmers were robbed by armed men in Rio De Janiero, Brazil during the 2016 Olympics Games. After authorities found surveillance footage which contradicted the swimmers' story and revealed that they had committed vandalism and urinated at a fuel station, Lochte apologized for over-exaggerating his story and that he had been drunk. Then, his sponsors such as Ralph Lauren and Speedo dropped him.

Video Games

Possibly the reason that Billy Zane was replaced as Ansemnort (including in the flashback scenes from the previous games) by Richard Epcar in the Kingdom Hearts series — Disney didn't want him on the project anymore due to the fact that, between the games, he'd taken on a major role in the Turkish action film Valley of the Wolves: Iraq. Said film drew heaps of criticism for portraying American soldiers in Iraq as monsters, and was called "anti-American propaganda" by many critics. Zane and the other American actors involved faced heavy backlash for appearing in that movie. A shame, because Epcar just can't match his legendarily hammy performance.

Averted in the case of Haley Joel Osment, who despite charges of DUI and drug possession still provides the voice of Sora.

The computer game Paranautical Activity was pulled from Steam on October 20, 2014 when its creator Mike Maulbeck saw the announcement of its completed release still had the "Early Access" banner, and responded by venting about Steam on his Twitter account—which culminated in threatening to killValve Software CEO Gabe Newell. Maulbeck soon apologized for this and resigned from his studio, Code Avarice, in an attempt to restore goodwill between it and Valve, although he has since been rehired.

As a result of suing fans for libel over bad reviews on Steam (see Frivolous Lawsuit for more), Valve had Digital Homicide's titles removed completely from the service and refuses to allow other titles by the developers on their platform. While the publisher has attempted to rebrand itself under a number of pseudonyms (namely, LootToot Games), they have still been stuck peddling DRM-free copies of their games on smaller distribution platforms, with nowhere near the reach they once had.

Web Original

Josh Macedo started as a very popular blogger from Tumblr and, without exaggeration, rose to the status of internet celebrity with YouTube and Vine channels and legions of fangirls, thanks to being the starter of twomemes, cosplaying (at one point his likeness was even fan-casted as Cecil's from Welcome to Night Vale), selfies in bowties, a fashionablygeeky Internet persona but, most importantly, because of his many pro-feminism blog writings and outward image of an "enlightened", pro-social justice, anti-misogyny and gender-conscious male nerd. That was until September 2013, when an underage former fan cameforward revealing that Josh had sent her sexually explicit messages and pictures (link NSFW) of him masturbating, Internet Backdraft ensued and more women came forward telling stories of receiving similar pictures and unwanted inappropriate messages from him, or how he had manipulated and pressured them for sex. With his once loyal and devoted fandom turned completely against him and his reputation in tatters, Josh Macedo deleted his blog and YouTube channel on September 20th 2013 and vanished from all internet public life.

YouTube content producer, musician and comedian Alex Day was at one point one of the most popular British Youtubers, with 1.1 million subscribers at his peak in January 2014 and a reputation for being a very talented musician that was capable of managing and marketing his work without any record company backing him. Shortly after he reached his peak, a few fans came forward with claims of sexual abuse and manipulation (link here, needless to say NSFW). More people (a few of whom were underage) came forward shortly after that with their own horror stories. Day eventually admitted to being emotionally manipulative (to this day he denies having relations with underage fans or having actually raped anyone, although Youtuber Beckii Cruel says that his interactions with her during her teenage years were at best inappropriate) and the community at large began ditching him, with his band Chameleon Circuit breaking up in part because of his actions, his one-time best friends Charlie McDonnell and Liam Dryden publicly ending their friendship with him, and the publisher for his first book dropping him weeks before his release was due. DFTBA Records also dropped him from their label, allegedly at his request. Since the revelations came to light and his badly thought-through attempts to explain backfired, he didn't upload a video for months, his subscriber numbers have dropped relatively sharply and his social media accounts were mostly wiped clean.

As of October 2014, Day appears to be trying to make a comeback, uploading videos again and trying to sell his book independently. Some of his fans have been won over by his explanation and he has managed to sell some copies, but many other users of the site, including an overwhelming number of his former friends and victims, have not forgiven him and his subscriber count has decreased rapidly, to the point that he's now gone below 1 million subscribers and is now projected to lose half his current subs within the next few years. He has since announced his plan to retire the "nerimon" channel and start on a new channel, which is not doing as well.

Around the same time that Alex Day suffered his scandal, Tom Milsom, a relatively popular British Youtuber and musician, was exposed for an inappropriate relationship with a fan that was underage, culminating in an incident of statutory rape (the girl was sixteen, the age of consent was seventeen, Milsom was in his early twenties at the time) after a history of emotional manipulation. The fact that Milsom behaved inappropriately around other fans, plus the news that the girl had suffered from prior abuse at the hands of her parents, quite understandably got Milsom exiled from the community (particularly after an allegation of him getting sexual with a fourteen or fifteen year old boy), made him declare his Twitter dead, got him dropped from DFTBA Car and caused him to delete all but three of his videos. He hasn't uploaded since. He has since found work in a relatively minor band, but that project is unlikely to ever reach the levels of fame that his past work did.

Edd Blann, relatively popular B-list Youtuber and fellow member of Chameleon Circuit, was technically exposed in August 2013, although it took a while for all of the accusations to come to the public eye. The allegations in question were also of sexual and domestic abuse, in which his now ex-girlfriend claims Blann forced himself on her repeatedly and then hit her when she called him out on his behaviour. This caused DFTBA to publicly drop him and fellow band members Charlie and Liam to publicly sever ties with him. While Blann wrote a song to try and essentially admit that he had his flaws, it only rallied the community against him, particularly after it became clear that he had been deleting both criticism and the comments of one of his victims. The comment in question? Her begging him not to return, since it was actually making her efforts to recover much more difficult. Since then, his efforts to return (generally in the form of "Trock" videos) have been met with general hostility and his Twitter was at one point made private, though it has since returned to normal. He claimed in a post in February 2015 that the allegations were false and that the police had been investigating him (later dropping charges), but the community at large does not seem to believe him on that last part.

YouTuber Sam Pepper was dropped by his network, Collective DS, in September 2014, subsequently being stripped of his "partner" status by YouTube. The reason for this was that he uploaded a video called "Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank", which consisted of him pinching women's butts and distracting them with a fake hand; the ensuing backlash led to him becoming an overnight joke amongst his now-former friends and YouTube removing the video. Pepper then went on to upload a second video with a girl doing it to guys, only fuelling the backlash further and getting the second video canned. His third video in the series involved his claim that the series had been a "social experiment" and that everyone involved had given their consent. This was seen as blatant backpedalling by the community at largenote and at this point the video plus all related tweets have been deleted or hidden, and by this point the floodgates were opened with people coming forth and giving their very NSFW stories about Pepper sexually assaulting them, some of which are being legally brought forward with support from Laci Green. He has also been blacklisted from YouTubers React, Vidcon, Summer in the City, Playlist Live and DigiTour, with various co-stars disowning themselves from him and removing videos that featured him in some capacity.

To put this in perspective, pretty much anyone of age can gain basic partner status (though without a fanbase, not network partnership) on YouTube. Sam Pepper has been banned from that. He's been pretty much fired from the internet. Additionally, any future employer is going to only see bad things when they do an online search of his name, destroying any other career options for him too.

Peva, a web designer who had designed many of the websites for the group, was eventually fired after a falling out with some members of the Yogscast.

GameChap and Bertie eventually severed ties with the Yogscast after they insulted several Yognaughts on the Yogscast subreddit in response to some relatively mild criticism. Unlike Tinman and Peva, they have been able to keep a web presence, but further scandals related to their stealing material (or at least failing to properly credit the creators) have caused subscriber growth to stagnate and their viewcount has dropped considerably. On top of that, their Orwellian Editor habits have caused them to ban any critics, in turn driving away several fans and moderators from both forums and channel, only making the decline worse.

On the flipside of it, TotalBiscuit officially ended his working relationship with the Yogscast after Simon Lane insulted him by calling him a "crying pissbabby" [sic]... over a comic book, no less. He is still working and communicating with other members such as Strippin, Sips and PyrionFlax, however.

Infamous YouTuber "Keemstar", of "Drama Alert" and "Federation of Asshole Gamers" (abbreviated to "F@G") infamy, has had his channel suspended on YouTube (as with his gamertag) at least ten times over the years, for trying to sell partnerships on the site (which is illegal) and for behaviour which was generally considered inappropriate. However, being the Determinator he is, he tends to create a new channel afterwards and continue until that gets banned, and so on. He was later banned outright from UMG after tweeting a false rumour that was spread by a kid about the then-head of UMG (as well as insulting the American military, who occasionally sponsor tournaments), causing Keem and his fans to bully Chris to the point he resigned.

YouTuber and musician Mike Lombardo was dropped from DFTBA records in February 2012 after allegations of possessing child pornography came to light. He was later sentenced to five years in prison in February 2014, and his channel was also deleted.

YouTuber Kelly Montoya was eventually forced to disappear after numerous allegations of sexual manipulation and rape, in early 2014.

Alex Carpenter, another YouTuber and musician who was big in the "wizard rock" community, was also forced to disappear after it became apparent that he had sexually assaulted at least two of his former partners, emotionally abused and manipulated a few others and started a relationship with a fan when she was below 18 (the age of consent where she and Alex both lived at the time). Though she claims they didn't actually have sex until it was legal, the interactions were somewhat sexual in nature and there are reports of similar behaviour with other underage fans. His attempts to pose as an anonymous supporter of one of his victims later backfired when he forgot to comment anonymously, at which point he finally left the internet in disgrace. DFTBA dropped him as well.

Welsh Youtuber Adam Roach, aka "TheGearsKeepTurning", was exposed in early 2014 for a variety of reasons, including sexually abusing one partner, trying to solicit nudes from a minor and emotionally manipulating fans into sex with him (while in a relationship, several times). The subsequent backlash caused him to not only stop posting videos, but to delete his Twitter, Tumblr and channel. At present, the only account he has remaining is his Google+ account, which hasn't been updated since October 2013.

Youtuber Travis Neumeyer (known as WhatTravisSays and for being a huge Doctor Who fan) was exposed in April 2014 for pressuring younger fans and/or into sending nudes (often with some incredibly dehumanising message), trying to manipulate them into taking nudes with friends, sending unwanted photos of himself masturbating to them, thinking up rape fantasies and constantly threatening them with it to their face, then told the same person to have sex with their very young sisters and dogs (needless to say, they didn't comply) and then emotionally abusing them when they wouldn't play along. Needless to say, the ensuing backlash caused him to disappear.

Harry Gilliatt, bassist of the band "seaqueens" and also known as "Hard G" or "sharkpilot", was exposed in 2014 for emotionally exploiting at least two fans who either had previously suffered from abuse at someone else's hands or were suffering from mental illness, pressuring girls (who were not eighteen) into sending him nudes and so on. The backlash caused him to publicly declare that he was leaving the internet, with "seaqueens" disbanding not long afterwards and its remaining members openly cutting ties with him before moving on to form "Wooden Dogs" instead.

British Youtuber Craig Dillon was accused of raping eight men in November 2014, with several disturbing allegations, the NSFW details of which can be found at this masterpost. His flippant attitude to the allegations was initially not helping (essentially telling victims that they should not use Tumblr to make people aware of bad behaviour, instead going to the police), but it later became apparent that he had been essentially posing as his own lawyer in an effort to deter victims from speaking out (this is, needless to say, a criminal act which violates both the UK Fraud Act 2006 and the Solicitors Act 1974). His web presence has since dropped almost entirely, with no new videos and tweets that generally evade his accusations.

Averted with the Creationist YouTuber, VenomFangX, who at first started abusing DMCA notices to silence his critics, until fellow Youtuber, Thunderf00t, threatened him with legal action and delivered into him a long Humiliation Conga, in which by the end he posted a video apologizing for his actions and taking hiatus for over a year, he returned after it but he's been much less active than before.

British YouTuber "Lukesbeans" was a relatively small but popular YouTuber that, ironically, spoke out against other abuse scandals on Youtube. However, he was exposed in November 2014 when allegations came out of him being emotionally abusive to former friends, making depressed people feel worse about themselves and then trying to justify it by using his Asperger's Syndrome as an excuse. This all came to a hilt, however, when a former friend recorded a phone conversation (NSFW) where he lied about it until said friend (who initially had reservations about exposing Luke, but eventually decided that things were going so badly that action had to be taken) confronted him with actual evidence that he'd been sending NSFW pictures to underage fans, causing him to confess. After all this, he was forced to disappear, having not uploaded since late October.

Youtuber "KarimAbridged" was a fairly popular user of the site until he was caught up in the sexual abuse scandal on Youtube. The allegations consisted of him soliciting nudes from minors and being inappropriate with regards to the personal space of other then-friends; while the victims of the latter were initially willing to forgive him, the revelation that he'd been soliciting nudes was the last straw and at least one of them went public with their stories. While Karim has still been active on Twitter, comments on videos of fellow accused abusers and denies any allegations, his Youtube activity has been significantly reduced and his subscriber number has tanked, in part due to his involvement with alleged fellow abusers such as Jason "VeeOneEye" Sampson. He has also been banned from the "Summer in the City" convention, as confirmed by organiser Tom Burns.

KSI was banned from Eurogamer Expo (now known as EGX) after a video of him being slightly inappropriate towards fans caused something of a backlash. While still very much popular on the internet in general, the organisers have made it clear that he is not welcome again. This also made vlogs of his group the Ultimate Sidemen at EGX 2014 feel a bit weird considering that their most famous member could not join them at all for that particular convention. Thus, they have decided not to return to EGX in 2015.

YouTuber "PleasantRyan" (real name Ryan O'Connor) disappeared from the internet in late 2014 after allegations of him being emotionally abusive and manipulative with somebody that he knew in real life. While he officially said that it was due to him being unable to create on what he considered a stagnant website, the timing of his sudden withdrawal, plus the deletion of his channel, did not convince anyone. Somewhat ironically, a masterpost documenting Youtube abuse is hosted by a Tumblr named after him.

Allison "Obscurus Lupa" Pregler was let go from Channel Awesome on January 12, 2015 for a very petty reason - leaving someone on hold for 15 minutes. Lupa maintains that she was away from her computer and had no idea there was anyone there. This led to Andrew Dickman and Phelous quitting the site in protest (though they had already had been planning to leave prior) and a number of other known faces leading an Internet Backdraft over the incident.

While Luke Conard seemingly survived the YouTube sexual abuse scandal, the news that he abused his one-time girlfriend Kristina Horner (aka "italktosnakes") was enough for DFTBA to drop him.

Shortly after Sam Pepper was exposed for his conduct, Jason "veeoneeye" Sampson came under scrutiny for his actions. He was accused by a fifteen year old girl of getting her drunk and then sleeping with her note the age of consent in the UK is sixteen, making this statutory rape. The subsequent backlash, plus attention from Channel 4 News in the UK, was enough for him to make a public "apology" that wasn't really an apology, in which he blamed his Mormon upbringing for the incident. While he appears to have somehow survived the scandal as a whole, he has been blacklisted from more or less every convention under the sun and has essentially been forced to flee to LA to avoid prosecution, with the community at large wanting nothing to do with him. The only collaborators that are still willing to work with him are other Youtubers that are also being accused of abuse, most of whom are listed above.

The King Of Hate was banned from Blip.tv after he made some very poor taste jokes about the Holocaust, during a playthrough of the Dead Space 2 demo.

Carter Reynolds was a fairly popular Vine star, but at some point in early 2015 a video was leaked of him attempting to pressure his then 16 year old girlfriend into having oral sex with him, The backlash was unsurprisingly large and Hank Green eventually had to eject him from Vidcon 2015 to try and manage things, partly because some attendees went berserk and tried to attack him. Here Reynolds ended up Digging Himself Deeper after he went on a long Twitter rant, then tried defying the ban next day and caused a bit of a ruckus in person. It also transpired he'd ignored his ex after an overdose which nearly killed her. All these are enough to ensure he won't be returning to the convention ever again; how his Vine career is affected remains to be seen.

Ben Schoen was initially part of the popular Harry Potter-themed podcast MuggleCast before he left to do other things, but his online image appears to have been irreversibly tarnished after he publicly harassed Grace Spelman, a writer for Buzz Feed that he had befriended in 2006 long before she started writing. He went on to tweet some weird things to her which supposedly asked about her relationship and moved to Facebook upon getting no response, which led to him getting blocked and politely turned down. He promptly started sending her more hateful messages attacking her career, accusing her of using I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! to get followers and readers, and this caused the co-founder of the site Feminspire to report that his behaviour towards her had been similarly abusive. Andrew Sims, creator and host of MuggleCast, made it very clear that Schoen would never be allowed to return to the podcast and that he was disgusted by what had happened.

The "Cokeburst Conundrum", as those within the Closing Logo Group have called itnote Long story short, the existence of a certain logo variant was vocally disputed despite clear evidence that it does exist, ended with the removal of Drayton Lumumba Chandell, owner of DLC Organization, and Arize Okeke (alias John Coffey) from the group for mistreating other members of the CLG, staff members or otherwise. That Okeke is known to some within the CLG as a racistnote racism being explicitly against CLG policy didn't help his case, either.

According toTransformers Wiki, Chris Latta (the voice of Starscream in the G1 cartoon, as well as Wheeljack, Reflector, and Sparkplug) had to be bailed out of jail so often that his characters were killed off in the movie. He still worked on the show in minor guest spots (such as a Cobra Commander crossover, Starscream's ghost, a Sweep, and a Headmaster in the three-part series finale), but not as a regular.

He continued to work on G.I. Joe (produced by the same company) despite this, although in a reduced capacity; it seems rather fortunate that Hasbro had decided to introduce a Cobra Emperor to the toyline, and Serpentor's presence in the series reduced the Commander to... well, The Starscream. DiC even brought him back when they revived the series for two more seasons (and put the Commander back in charge, to boot).

Carlo Bonomi, best known for providing all of the voices in the Swiss stop-motion series Pingu, was, in a sad note, deemed unable to reprise his roles when HiT Entertainment UnCanceled the series six years after the last episodes of the original series were produced. Although the exact reason for this is unknown, it's been said that Bonomi's inability to learn or speak English with his new executives from London became too much for them, and was consequently dismissed. Two local actors from London, one of whom had Italian ancestry similar to Bonomi, took his place instead.

Voice actor Greg Burson was fired from Looney Tunes in 2003 because of his struggles with alcohol, not to mention his 2004 arrest for kidnapping. He later died in 2008 after being absent from the business for five years.

In his first cartoon appearance, Popeye was voiced by William Costello. However, Costello's behavior came in conflict with the Hays Code and he was booted off the role and replaced with the more memorable performance of Jack Mercer.

Rugrats has an in-universe example: a popular children's showhost is fired after Angelica Pickles unwittingly reveals on air that she had said something extremely rude about children.

Likewise, The Simpsons had Bart turn the cameras on Gabbo (the puppet whose show dethroned Krusty the Klown) in time to broadcast him calling the kids of Springfield S.O.B.s across the city. Subverted when the incident makes the news and Kent Brockman tries to play it straight, but it turns out that the people of Springfield still adore Gabbo.

An other episode deals with Kent Brockman himself being fired after Homer accidentally pours hot coffee onto his crotch and says a word "so horrible, it could only be said by Satan himself while on the toilet." Though what got Brockman fired wasn't the swearing on live TV (that got him demoted to weatherman while Arnie Pie took over as the anchor), but allegedly having cocaine in his cup of coffee (it was actually Splenda, but his boss "thought" that Splenda was slang for cocaine.)

Skyler Page, one of the creators and former voice of Clarence, was fired from Cartoon Network after a number of incidents related to his increasing mental instability, the last straw being when a storyboard artist for Adventure Time accused him of sexually assaulting her.

Joe Dougherty, the original voice of Porky Pig, was kicked out of Warner Bros. as his inability to control his stutter made it difficult for him to work with the crew. He was replaced with Mel Blanc beginning with the short subject Porky's Duck Hunt. It didn't help Dougherty that Blanc would end up becoming a staple for WB's Looney Tunes characters for course of the next several decades, fame that Dougherty never enjoyed, nor that said stutter also threatened the career of fellow WB staple Friz Freleng.

Friz Freleng: He would begin to recite, but then he'd get stuck. He just couldn't get off certain words. We were recording on film at the time, and the film was running, and I figured, boy, if they find out how much film I used just to make a cartoon, they'll kick my ass off the lot.

Subverted with Rodger Bumpass, the voice of Squidward Tentacles in Spongebob Squarepants. Despite Bumpass' arrest on DUI charges, Nickelodeon's morals clause for the series didn't consider driving under the influence to be an immoral act, and thus he was not subject to the legal grounds for termination. It also could have fared badly for the series had Bumpass been fired, as it would have been extremely noticeable by children for Squidward to be removed from the series and/or recast/replaced.

Jason Biggs was replaced on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) after sending some rather suggestive tweets about the Republican National Conference, right after Nickelodeon used the show's official account to promote him on Twitter. Leonardo is currently voiced by Seth Green instead.

Other

Most schools with strict zero-tolerance weapons policies can enforce this. In some cases, even an act as benign as drawing a picture of a gun or pointing a Finger Gun at someone can land a student in hot water with the administration, up to and including suspension/dismissal.

Schools even have zero-tolerance on drugs and other acts of violence such as fighting. Students have gotten suspended or even expelled over asthma inhalers (schools also confiscate them and hold them in the main office until a student needs them, which leads to students dying unnecessarily) or even trying to stop fights or protect someone else from bullies.

Atlanta Fire Department Chief Kelvin Cochran was terminated by Mayor Kasim Reed in 2015 after he allegedly tried to promote his religious beliefs by publishing homophobic comments in his book Who Told You That You Were Naked?, which he distributed copies of to his fellow colleagues at the department. Cochran was offered an opportunity by Reed to resign but refused, forcing Reed to fire him. Christian conservative groups were pissed by this, and joined Cochran is suing the city for suppressing his religious freedom, but the lawsuit so far has not moved forward.

Australian-born entertainer, musician and artist Rolf Harris was found guilty of sexually assaulting young girls aged between 8-16 between 1968 and 1986 in 2014. He is now serving 5 years & 9 months imprisonment in England. His paintings and memorials have been taken down, his TV shows have been taken off the air, his music has been blacklisted, he has been stripped of his honours and will very likely die behind bars. It's extremely unlikely he will make a comeback.

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